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A Glass Half Shattered; [Private: Aey/Drew]
Topic Started: Wed Dec 21, 2016 9:58 pm (396 Views)
Maranae
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Her eyes opened to bleary surroundings that slowly resolved themselves into a bedroom, and this was the important part, [i[that she did not recall entering.[/i] Blankets, in a tangle about most of her body, had been drawn up to her chin. There was no one in the room but herself, and it was dark, the curtains drawn against the daylight that peeked around their edges. The place was silent.

She stirred, and it was weakly. She had never felt so spent in her entire life, and she couldn't for the life of her remember why, or how she had come to be here. Or anything, really. Her name, Maranae, was clear in her aching head, but everything else was a formless smear in her skull. She lay there, prostrate on the bed beneath the covers, and tried to move. At first, it didn't work at all, but eventually she was able to shift herself, lying on her back without the strength to even raise her head.

As if in protest, parts of her body began to chime in. They had been forgotten and neglected and, apparently, put through some sort of trial. They were not amused. Her muscles ached, her bones throbbed and, more pressingly at the moment, her abdomen practically screamed with unholy fire. So did her arm.

It was an intense effort, and as more parts of her came alive, so did parts of her mind. It was the oddest thing, though; the only image that came through clearly was teeth, yellow tinged, and wolf-eyes filled with madness. She managed to get almost into a sitting position, blankets falling away as she did so. Her eyes fell upon her arm and exposed thorax, which was indecently unclothed.

Oh, she whispered thickly, the single word barely intelligible. Which was just as well, since there wasn't anyone to hear it, or anyone there to watch her pass out once again.




It was much later, and she was sitting at a table in a large kitchen. The men of the house were out, at the moment; it was late in the morning, the cold winter light cutting through thick curtains designed for winter, to hold the warmth in the house. Mara stared at the table with an air of dejection, a steaming cup of tea sitting untouched by one of her hands.

"Its good to see you about, Miss Mara," said the older woman across the table from her. Easily in her sixties, it was clear she was the matriarch of this particular clan out in the woods. The younger women scurried about, tending to chores about the kitchen and the house, those who weren't out helping with other work on the farm. The old woman looked at her with a critical, intelligent eye. "Considering how you were when we found you. I could say its a miracle that you are even breathing."

A miracle to even be alive, she mused internally. Two weeks. She had lost two weeks, all a confused blur of nightmares and terribly brief moments of lucidity. According to Agnes - the old woman sitting across from her - she had arrived here two weeks before. Crawled, clawed her way from the woods screaming obscenities and raving with madness. That she had been had at by some wild thing, the flesh of her right arm torn and shredded, some of it missing. Claw marks across her chest and abdomen, suppurating evil smelling fluid. A miracle indeed.

"I don't know that its such a miracle, she murmured. She had dared to look underneath the bandages that had been applied to her body once they brought her in. She was very much afraid of what she might see. Those injuries still throbbed, but they also felt odd. So, if it came to it, did the rest of her, even her thoughts. They felt faraway, in some manner. Distant, and difficult to hold. I...I was traveling in company. Has...have any of my people been found?

The woman looked like she would rather discuss any other topic but that. It was with extreme and apparent reluctance that she finally spoke. "Oh, aye. We found them all right. Fifteen of you, there was?" She barely waited for a nod from the red-headed woman before continuing. "We found them here, and there. Not much left of them. Whatever got you, got them better." There was plenty to be read in what was left unsaid, but she wasn't an idiot. Whatever had been at her had eaten some of her while she was still alive. She thought of her coworkers, and felt decidedly ill at the idea of having to suffer through being eaten alive. "We found the shattered remnants of a wagon and a few horses too. Whatever it was was, it was mighty hungry."

Wolves, she replied without much conviction. But even without being entirely sure, she was sure that it had damn well looked like wolves.

Agnes shook her head. "Wolves don't do that, lady. They avoid people when and where they can; they don't attack parties of sixteen for any reason at all. Not even dire wolves would do so." She paused, and shook her head. "Though I cannot even begin to think of a singular creature in the forest that not only would do what we saw and found, but would even be capable of it. Surely you guys know how to fight?"

He barked a short, sharp laugh. Fight? Oh, I imagine I could probably do a good fist fight." Her words were sour. We're not warriors. I am not a warrior. I can dabble in a bit of magic and maybe handle a knife a little, but...well, I am a damned carpenter. Was one. I've been a foreman with the Sky City Construction Company for About a decade now, and I dealt with cutting wood and hammering it into place before that. I prefer working with things that don't try to cut back." She laughed, but it was a weak laugh. Ella and Derik know their way around with a sword. You could call them our escort, even though they really were hired to do finish work. I can read blueprints and boss peopel about and, if it came to it, use a measure, a hammer, and a saw. Not read magical tomes, call upon the forces of creation, or cut some barbaric monster in half with a sword. I'm not a hero, she explained, investing the word hero with an acidic contempt.

Rather than laugh or make comment, the woman simply nodded. "Honest craftsfolk, then. Well, its a shame that the ones who knew how to use weapons were in no way prepared for whatever it was. I am...sorry for your losses." Her tone became brisk. "In any case, its time to have a look at your wounds. I haven't changed the dressing in five days or so. Your fever has apparently broken, and you are strong enough to stand..." she began, and then got up and moved around the table.

The pain was...intense. She almost didn't want to look as she removed the last of the dressing on her arm, and heard the sharp in-drawn breath. She had to force herself to look, and when she did, she could only stare in amazement.

Bordering on disbelief and bewilderment. The look was mirrored by the old woman. "What....are you?" she asked, very carefully.

Nothing special," she answered breathlessly. Pink, new skin gleamed in the pale indoor light. The terrible wound was gone. It still ached, as though there should be a raw tear in her flesh...but the physical evidence was contrary to what her mind was telling her. A...a little human, maybe some elf blood. Who knows what else? I'm...I'm just a person, she finished rather weakly. She flexed the arm, and it gave a nauseating twinge at the motion. What...what did you do to me? Are you some kind of cleric?

Agnes shook her head slowly. "I bound the wound with a poultice the first day to draw out the poison of infection. I...admit that the infection didn't respond to my ministrations. This..this is remarkable!" She went back to her seat, and sat down heavily, taking her cup of now cooled tea and draining it in one go. "Humans don't have that kind of regenerative ability."

The tone was flat, and Maranae couldn't blame Agnes for the hint of accusation in her voice, as if she were lying. I swear, I am nothing special." She looked at her arm again, and shuddered. At least, I wasn't.

The other woman sat for a long time, silent. When she stirred again it was with glacial slowness. "Well! Well. I've seen quite a few things in my day, but this tops most of it. In fact, I don't even know what to say."

Don't look at me! This is news to me, too!" Sudden dizziness siezed her, and she put a hand to her forehead to try and stave it off. She felt remarkably unwell all of a sudden.

"Is something wrong?" Agnes inquired, but Mara couldn't speak just then. That not-quite-there feeling was back, and stronger than before. Her bones ached, and her muscles throbbed. Agnes words seemed to be coming down a long, echoing tunnel. "Mara? Mara?! What...what are you-"




Thunder growled overhead. She came to slowly, like falling through a long tunnel and landing in her earthly body. She ached everywhere, and felt the sting of wounds, like knife cuts in her body. Her sight was too blurry to begin with, but as she regained focus, she could only stare in mute horror.

Her clothing was in tatters, and blood darkened virtually everywhere. Dozens of cuts criss-crossed her arms, and she could feel deeper wounds in her torso. She had no recollection of receiving them, and no memory of arriving here. Lightning flashed across the sky; it was late afternoon, and a thunderstorm (so out of character for the season) roared its disapproval of the world overhead. A few fat, icy cold raindrops cannoned into the ground, followed by more, until all at once a torrential deluge emptied itself from the sky, cold water tracing icy tracks across the flesh of her arms and legs, down her neck, her back. Cold, so cold against feverishly hot flesh that made the cold water steam as it washed across her body, carrying with it cracking and flaking blood.

What...the hell....happened... she though to herself slowly. And it was slow, her thoughts moving as if within thick porridge. Trees rose around her but...but she could faintly smell wood smoke drifting through the cold, wet air. She slowly got to her feet on unsteady legs - legs that seemed, for all the world, as if they were unaccustomed to standing upright - and looked around. Yes, wood smoke, but that was simply one smell overlaying the greater part, the part she was trying not to think of. The sharp, unsubtle smell of blood and bile, and torn viscera, wove through the otherwise clean scent of the woodlands.

And, looking back at the direction the smell of smoke was coming from, she could almost wish that she could have that moment back, to not look. She gave a strangled croak of horror, bile rising in the back of her throat cutting through the rich taste of something entirely different. It was too far to make anything out clearly, but it was clear enough that the ruins of some farmhouse, charred timbers still smouldering despite the rain, were visible. Much beyond that, she didn't want to see. Couldn't even let herself see, if it came to it.

With a strangled cry of negation, she staggered, falling every few steps, deeper into the woods. There was no escape from the shattered remnants of memory, if those memories weren't simply the products of madness.
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Hearne
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Every month or so Hearne made rounds through the villages of Norwood wearing one face or another, sometimes bringing trade to stimulate a stagnating economy, sometimes healing the ill, and sometimes just a helpful stranger willing to perform a great service for the people. During harvests he would bring the rains or help the crops along their way when he could, those a good deal of that ability was beyond his reach now. These people didn't know who he was anymore, but they remembered the robed figure who had kept watch over them for so long. Even now they still told stories of the watchful Harin, their benefactor who sent these helpful strangers their way and made sure no tragedy went unaddressed for long.

This month he was a healer tending the wounded and sickly, wearing a familiar face of finer features and lighter hair, blue eyes kindly and welcoming. The elderly nodded to him when they crossed paths, the young ran up to him and laughed in joy when they left with a new doll or a wooden shortsword. He'd watched these children grow from infants, as well as their parents before them and their grandparents before them.

When the group of travelers passing through the area was found with a single seriously injured survivor, he received a messenger from the couple who had taken her in. It seemed her injuries were beyond their confidence to heal and he sent word back he would be there as soon as he could and to keep her poultices and bandages clean and fresh.

He passed the scene shortly thereafter, taking the time to study the wreckage. The event was too brief and recent to read the past of the wreckage, seeing little but long roads and heavy loads straining its wheels. The death was heavy on the air, energies scattered to the winds.

He arrived too late.

At the first sign of smoke too heavy on the air for a chimney, he sent power into the sky and gathered the clouds, bringing rains in from nearby areas. It was heavy and winter cold, but he doubted it would suffice. He came upon the scene just in time to see a woman in ragged clothing staggering away from the wreckage. Moving in her direction, unseen in the stormy darkness, he hurried as he saw the scene of the farmhouse, hoping to catch up to the woman before whatever had done this did.

His concentration broke in the rush, his skin roughening and gaining a meshwork of tattoos up and down his arms, a thin brand raising on his face. His hair darkened to brown and a beard interrupted by the brand on his right cheek grew in. Reaching a hand covered in the geometric lacework ink, he pinched together the fabric of the planes, opening a shortcut and stepping out of the darkness in front of the woman hurrying away, reaching out his arms to catch her.

Hold! I'm here to help!
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Maranae
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She ran in a drunken stagger, barely managing to keep her feet. Her legs felt rubbery, and her head swam as she crashed through thin undergrowth, saplings and other understory growth whipping at her face, her arms, her legs. Wounds, already healing at a remarkable rate, began to bleed again, the stinging pain lost in the sense of terror that threatened to overwhelm her mind.

Nonononononono.. The denial rang empty in her head. She could see - bleary, indistinct, but no less real for all of that - the blood. The screams of horror, heard from more ears than she actually possessed and seen and smelled from more eyes and noses than any single being could own. It had to be some fragment of a fever dream. She was oblivious to the way her shape twisted as she ran, her morphic field unsettled from the cruel things that had been done to it just minutes past.

She stumbled into a shape, indistinct in the gloom, and let out a piercing shriek that echoed all of the terror pounding through her veins. Her heart hammered loud in her ears as she crashed into...into whatever it was. And that whatever was unyielding, unmoved by her weight.

She staggered back a step, forest green eyes wild and bright with fear. She saw what was before her, but no amount of reason could supress panic once it had been loosed and granted full control of her senses; her mouth worked without a sound. And then she charged off to the left, feeling something else slither through her flesh, warming her with an almost sexual heat.

One step, she was just coming up alongside the man, the strange man she had not seen arrive. The next she was dozens of feet away, stumbling and losing her balance and sense of direction at the sudden shift. She went down in an untidy heap, sending a few crimson droplets sailing through the air as she tumbled and tore wounds open again. Gleaming motes of magic flashed like late summer heat lightning in the air around her. There was something odd about that blood, too, the way it shimmered faintly. Probably nothing.

She came to rest, lungs working like a bellows, eyeing the unknown stranger. She tried to rise to her feet and made it as far as her hands and knees before collapsing; pain lanced through her body in a rhythmic pulse, counterpoint to her heart.

...can't help....need to leave...before they come back... she rasped, managing to sit upright as a thin thread of blood snaked its way down her forehead. She had the unpleasant feeling that she was being watch.

From the woods...and from within. Something of predatory intent.
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Hearne
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Hearne steadied himself as she crashed into him, settling into a low center of gravity to try to catch her. She careened off him rather than fall into him, staggering off to escape his reach despite his cries of protest. Now that he was closer and not distracted by the emergency, he found his full attention revealed a good deal more than he'd first expected. Whatever was happening, she wasn't just a bystander.

He felt the bud of power in this girl. It was strong in her aura with room to grow yet. Rather than the tight control of many magi, raw power bled off her in every direction for anyone to grab hold of and use. He reached out and used it to bolster his spellwork now, quickly twisting threads of mana into a weave meant to soothe and calm rampant emotion. He'd learned it long ago working with beasts in the Savage Gardens, but it was simple to adapt to function on more intelligent creatures.

Shaping it with weaving fingers and the thrum of a subvocal, rhythmic growl in his chest and throat, he released it over this panicked and unstable woman. “Calm, child. They can't hurt you now. If you want to come with me, I can bring you somewhere out of reach where nobody will get hurt. Safety and aid, my oath of hospitality.

It was a binding promise. Among mortal creatures words might mean little, but to certain beings it was worth more than their life to break a promise freely given. Hospitality would mean he was responsible for her safety, giving her proper quarter and feeding her for as long as she needed succor and did not breach the laws herself. “On my power.” He swore, making a slashing motion behind him. The air parted, the shade of the trees vanishing as warm, golden light shone inviting from the door-shaped opening to his Gardens. He kept his palms out toward her in a placating motion, showing her he hid nothing.
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Maranae
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Under his gaze, something twisted inside her. It was not loathing, and it certainly wasn't panic. Oh, she was already well under the spell of mind-killing terror; that particular wagon had been rode hard since...well, since whenever she had been attacked. The number of days or minutes or hours were simply a blur, punctuated by brief stops where sanity could glimmer through, tantalizing and out of reach.

She had already started moving away from him, scratched up legs pumping to put more distance between her and him. She hadn't got very far when somethign else happened; it was like something clamped down on her mind. Emotion bled away, reluctantly at first, until terror was suppressed into numbness. She stopped trying to move away, and stared at him, eyes glassy and bright.

...some place safe. No one will get hurt... she murmured, voice low and throaty. She looked at him, eyes suddenly lidded. Something circled deep in her mind, wild and feral, and bared its fangs at him unseen and unfelt.She herself was only aware of it on a subliminal level.

He frowned at her, perplexed by the disconnect between subject and action. "...yes. Safe. Nobody has to get hurt anymore." Laughter echoed faintly in her mind, but it was more clear than the baring of fangs. Whatever it was, it was working through whatever had happened to her. Her form shifted a little, but only momentarily. She seemed solidly stuck in her current shape now there was an odd thought, unable to change.

Voluntarily, anyway. Desire and ability had to come together as one for that, and she had neither.

She was silent a long moment, and then slowly got to unsteady feet. Blood dripped from her chin, unnoticed. Safe from...who? There was a raw edge to that question, and a hint of, if not knowing, then terrified suspicion. The power of the strangers' magic was already waning, already being overcome by whatever pathological magic infected her. I...can't remember. Was there something to be afraid of? She blinked, clearly confused. What do you mean is there something to be afraid of? IT WASN'T A DREAM, IT WAS REAL!!, the mad voice gibbered inside her head. The stark terror that radiated from those words seemed incapable of penetrating into her mind, realized as disconnected concepts. Somethign seethed beneath it, unidentified and unidentifiable.

"I'm not certain, exactly. Why don't you tell me what happened back there?" The words traveled through her body like an electric shock. The foundation of the emotional suppressing spell rocked to its knees as something else surged to the forefront, virulent and dark. But not evil; no, you could say what you would about it, but evil was not it. Primal.

She swayed on her feet, very nearly fainting. Some of that overwhelming fear leaked through the barrier, and the trembling it set her to was at strong odds with the otherwise calm demeanor. And with her words. I...I don't know what happened, she began, and swallowed hard. I was in a house, with people...and then I was here, in the woods. Dreamily, she looked at herself, and winced. Did they do this to me? The surging, and above all else hungry, feeling pushed through the fear, but not enough to still her trembling.

He waved a hand at the portal "Why don't you come back with me and we can figure out just what happened to you." He reached a hand out to her. Her half-lidded eyes darted between the portal and his outstretched hand, and she reluctantly began to raise her own, as if to grasp his.

Something surged inside. Terror pounded through the thin veneer of a spell meant to contain it, and something else rode atop the stream. It was violent, primal, and centered only only one thing: Hunger. She jerked her hand back as if from fire, and gave a startled gasp. And then she turned, and ran as hard as she could, wailing all the while. Its a trap, her mind screamed. He will take me back to it, and it will finish what it set out to do in the beginning. Her form blurred as she ran, but despite the morphic inconsistency, she remained human in form. Occasionally, something feral and clearly feline hazed into sight, but only briefly.

Neither noticed that they were being watched, or by what it was that was doing the watching.
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