Logs:Unspeakable
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| RL Date: 7 September, 2015 |
| Who: Z'kiel, Ahtzudaeth |
| Involves: Igen Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Z'kiel finishes some unfinished business. It gets ugly. (TW: Domestic Abuse) |
| Where: Igen Weyr |
| When: Day 14, Month 9, Turn 38 (Interval 10) |
| Weather: Moody. |
| OOC Notes: Disturbing material; comes before this. |
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| Niahvth's glow was too much - and it reminded him of business he had to finish. Tomorrow finally came. He wasn't sure how to feel about it. Agitated. Restless. Angry. Was that just the influence of the gold? Probably. But it didn't ease when Ahtzudaeth touched down on the packed earth of Igen Weyr's bowl. « Ah, Tephrasth! Such a pleasure to meet you again, in a manner of speaking. I do trust you and yours are having a fine day. » Tephrasth's thoughts were a swirl of sand and heat; a polite welcome, if distant. Occupied. The space of his mind was luminous and green; Ahtzudaeth needed no other explanation. It didn't ease when he dismounted. « Yours is absolutely certain of where we will find... » Tephrasth's response was a blast of heat. Frustrated. Confirming. Ahtzudaeth chortled and left the brown to his pursuit of the exquisitely bright green that was rising high on the thermals. It certainly didn't fade when he stalked into the lower caverns, where the residents staked their claim. Ahtzudaeth would have followed, but his bulk was a minor impediment. He settled out in the bowl, some distance off. In the realm of minds, he did the same, his smoke and mirrors separated from the variegated terrain of Z'kiel's mind by a thick wall. Most days, he was a turbulent desert or a thick jungle. Sometimes an ocean; sometimes the sky. Today, Ahtzudaeth had no words for the alien landscape that pulsed and gnashed on the other side of the wall. So, he studied it. Patiently. The people parted before him. He took notice, but only in the way a predator notices how prey flees before it. When he came to the family bubble that she shared with her parents, her brother, her sisters, he stopped and peeled off his helmet and goggles. She was alone, as Kasdeja said she would be; they were busy. So was she. An infant of about six or seven months was in her arms. Her back was to the entrance of the cavern, but he could still see glimpses of the child, could tell that the bounce in her step was to soothe it. It hiccuped once and fell silent; Sitri crossed to the crib in a corner and laid the child in there. He sucked his teeth and waited. "There. There, there, now," she sighed and sank into the chair next to the crib. She rubbed at her temples and pushed the hair back from her face. It pained him to see her; she looked tired. More than tired. She'd cut her hair. She was wearing different clothing - a loose-fitting sari, unlike the well-fitted dresses she preferred. She looked paler. Thicker. Undone. It didn't take much to connect the dots. She looked up and finally, finally saw him. Sitri jerked in her seat and her cheeks flushed red. She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it sharply; she set her jaw at a stubborn angle and glared, with her hands balled into a knotted fist in her lap. Her nails were shorter; bitten. He looked from her hands to her face, eyes narrowed and jaw tense. "Yours?" She swallowed hard and nodded once. Stiffly. "Mine?" She looked away. His jaw tightened and his teeth ached for the pressure. "Whose." Not a question, not any more. She shook her head again and bit her lower lip out of frustration. Z'kiel calmly put the goggles in the helmet and set the helmet on the floor. One step. That's all he took. "Whose." It became a demand. Sitri kept her jaw at that stubborn angle, though silent tears began to streak down her cheeks. It was the one thing he was always proud of her for - that ability to keep from sobbing openly. The wet, blubbery crying types always disgusted him on some level. One glove came off. Then the other. Another step. "Whose." She shook her head again and her shoulders shook. Her head dropped and she covered her face with her hands. He stuffed the gloves into his belt. "If you don't tell me," came low and cold and slow, "I will find out from someone else." She recoiled and pushed to her feet, with a faint tremble that tripped down her spine. "I can't. I don't- I don't..." She wasn't the woman he knew. She wasn't the woman he'd known. It took effort for Ahtzudaeth to find a way over the wall. He settled on going through it, instead. And what he found there was horrifying. Wrong. This was not the man he Impressed. "You don't know?" The words were poison, dripping from his tongue. Sitri choked on the "Yes." And she was in his hands. Choking again. Clawing at him and catching only leather. She wasn't who he wanted any more. She was tainted. Ruined. He had to fix it. He had to fix her to match the memory. To make her her again. With a mental huff, Ahtzudaeth began to carve his siguls into the air, the soil, the warped wood of poisoned plants. He began to push - and push hard - in search of that one thing that would send it all back into the darkness from whence it came. He tightened the pressure. He heard a child screaming. The world went bright. « Ah! There we are! Out, you unspeakable foulness! BEGONE! » Ahtzudaeth found the source and exerted everything of himself to force it out - away, but perhaps not for forever. The foul nightmare dissipated and all that was left was a blank plain, a featureless desert that quickly went dark. Black. And when he came to, Sitri had fled, with the child, to leave him on the ground - alone. His nose bled and he sat there for a while, just feeling the viscous fluid slide over his lips, his chin, and to the floor. Z'kiel ran the tip of his tongue out to taste it. An electric silence hung between man and dragon. Ahtzudaeth didn't dare to touch it; Z'kiel was protected by it. He finally pushed to his feet and gathered his helmet and goggles. When motes of light winked into being in his mental space, he shoved them away. What he wanted, what he needed, was not here. He found it where he always did - in a mostly abandoned curve of inner caverns tunnels. Tunnelsnakes were there, usually. Edible, mostly. Some venomous. But he went for the rocks. They were rough there. Dark. And they didn't cry when he hit them. |
Comments
Squishy (20:05, 7 September 2015 (PDT)) said...
Fuck.
Faryn (20:12, 7 September 2015 (PDT)) said...
High Reaches is a nest of asps, all with dragons who are better than they are.
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