Prism

Status
Not open for further replies.
"I'm not afraid."

The words were the same, but the tenor was different. Gentler, calmer. Truer, too. She certainly wasn't looking forward to the storm -- though Mori was. She could feel that, and knew part of her lack of anxiety came from him, from the delight she could feel growing at the mere prospect.

It helped, too, that they were neither boxed in, nor exposed. Out in the desert, there would be no surprises. They could see the storm coming for miles, and even lightning announced its presence, at least to the Aavan. The the outcropping of rock felt cozy and sturdy enough to provide a safe vantage point from which to watch the sky reach down to touch the earth. Nature on parade, she told herself, and little more.

But mostly, it was hope. Funny she hadn't recognized it for what it was until Mori started to take it away. She could feel now, too, how afraid she'd been before. The difference between chaos and peace was as tangible as it was intimidating...but the idea that there was an outside, that not everything was the darkness...Even if she could never get there again, she could pretend. She could try. She could remember. And she could dream.

Mori didn't know the gift he'd given her over the last few days. He couldn't have. And the price she'd had to pay, and the price he'd had to pay were worth it when she looked back. Even as she felt him going, she couldn't help but smile.

And she knew there and then as the first peal of thunder rolled across the sky:

She owed the black Aavan her life. If he hadn't stepped in when he had, it surely would have meant the end of it.
 
By the time the storm was going to break, Mori was just finishing his retreat from the Cerebra's mind and so far it seemed to have gone well. It was relieving not to have that pressure constantly exerting itself against him, but the Aavan also felt it strange - so very strange in a way he could not explain, could not reason out - to not have his mind, even a small part of it, within her own. It almost felt, dare he say, wrong, like he'd taken a step backward instead of forward, a step in the wrong direction.

He wanted to go back.

And that wish truly made him question whether he actually felt that deprived of a mind-touch or if there was really something significant to be found in that unexpected desire. He knew the only thing that would answer that question for him was when he got back to his people, when his mind was swarmed with those of the other Aavan. If then he still felt this ache, this longing, then he would know it was real.

Right now it was very, very hard to tell and he was not going to assume anything. He HAD been deprived of his last Nuathal bonding and those had barely sustained him for six years anyway. He knew he was bound to crash soon, badly, but such was the way the mind-sickness worked. Right now, though, he was fine and he could only hope he continued to remain so because there was no willing bonding participant in sight. And in a few days, Rora would be gone, back with her own people.

That thought caused an unexpected twinge to travel through his chest and as he stood, Mori rubbed at it, his black hair blowing back from his face by the wind, giving evidence to a strong and yet refined bone structure that wasn't often seen behind the curtain of mane that usually covered at least one of his eyes and most of his expression. The Aavan tried to push the brief pain away, not sure if it was true pain or imagined - and not sure why either would have happened - as he looked to the storm. The first spatters of rain hit his body then, the thunder louder and rumbling, and Mori shifted up to his larger form just as the first streak of lightning passed through the sky. The Aavan gave a rumble of his own in pure gleeful happiness to see it before he turned toward Rora and without much thinking about it, he gave her a light nudge with his nose.

"Come on, little rainbow. Up you go."

His tail came around her waist then and he lifted her up to the shelter he'd carved out, placing her inside. His violet eyes gave her a reassuring and yet excited look then before he turned his large body, just catching sight of more lightning, this time hitting the desert sand. Thunder roared like a dragon and Mori opened his mouth and roared back at it, something in the pitch, the depth and even the sound of the roar differing from his usual ones. It sounded more like thunder than anything else.

Lightning, three strands of it, streaked from the dark canopy above as if summoned and the Aavan laughed when they struck his body, rippling and crackling over his scales. He started to leap and roar to the sky again and the lightning answered, striking here and there, sometimes just missing him, sometimes striking true, but there was an air of pure play about the entire thing. It was a game.
 
Last edited:
She an hour had passed only by the approach of the storm. It closed in like an overexcited child, announcing it's coming like a child, turning the sky purple when lightning would flash behind the clouds, tickling Rora's feet when the thunder shook the earth.

She stood, rigid, perfectly still, staring hard at the edge of the sky as the Aavan continued his strange retreat. It seemed a delicate process for them both. Rora, for her part, was half afraid if she moved too quickly, the spell would come undone. The blackness, for once, seemed wary. Not afraid, never afraid, not of Rora, or anything, but careful, as if one wrong move might restore the wall the Aavan had built and steal its helpless prey away again. The dark had returned in full force, but it was not the raging storm it always was and had been, so much as a heavy, treacherous fog ready to engulf her at the first chance.

Rora didn't dive into it right away, not while the Aavan was still removing himself. Doing so might spur a panic, and she was suddenly certain the Aavan would not retreat if he thought the darkness would consume her. She could still feel the dull ache, eating away at him, the cost of maintaining her sanity. She would wait until he done and she was alone again. He had promised she would not be, but --

She almost jumped when he nudged her. She turned and was surprise to see he stood at his full height again. She nodded wordlessly as he lifted her up, and this time, she let herself sit. After traveling so long on his back, spending so many of her hours sleeping, it had drained her, even just to stand for the removal process. Or perhaps it was the removal itself. In any case, she was content to sit -- not relax, but sit -- and watch the Aavan greet the storm.

And as he roared at the sky, she felt her own weariness and his lift from her bones. Whatever trepidation had been waiting at the edges of her mind was put on hold as she watched, feeling his delight pour through her, overwhelming even the darkness in her mind. She felt it shudder and hiss, angry at yet another interruption, but she didn't care. She watched the Aavan chase the storm from her little hidey hole in the rock, first curious, then amused, then smiling.

Rora could also feel information from the few days prior began to trickle back. The desert snake, the forest, the Telekinetic powers. Risa. She paused for a moment, cautious, then squinted her eyes against a bolt of lightning that touched down to the earth. Hesitant, as if she didn't believe she could truly enjoy the storm, she stood on unsteady legs and tottered carefully to the outer edge of the nook Mori had made for her.

She put out a hand and caught a fat, cool drop in the center of her palm almost immediately. She stared at it for a second, doubtful, but...yes. That single drop, that super finite part of the storm...Mori had been right. It was a good storm. It was a kind storm.

She looked out to him as the lightning fell full on dark scales. She felt delight spike through her bones, and Rora laughed, even as the fact that she had been the one to kill Risa finally settled in.
 
He heard her.

Through the thunder and the rain, through the whispers only he could hear within the lightning, he heard her laughter. It pierced through everything, thrilled through him in the most delightful way and he looked back to Rora, violet eyes alight with mirth as the lightning continued to ripple over him. Mori laughed again, the edges of a blue-white glow developing in his eyes as the massive amounts of electricity suddenly arced off him and toward the Cerebra. They never reached, though, writhing and swirling through the air, forming a picture slowly and surely into a flower as the Aavan simply seemed to watch.

He'd been doing such things since he was a young Aavan. Mere tricks.

The lightning-picture broke up after a moment, the bolts traveling into the earth, leaving behind globs of what would be glass when the sand cooled. Mori went back to the storm then, wings flaring, roaring up again at the sky and for a moment the storm itself seemed to pause, to hold its breath, before the biggest strikes and the most yet came streaking toward the black Aavan. They hit all at once and he didn't try to avoid them this time, standing still, feeling the immense surge of raw power that ignited in his blood, not caused by the lightning, activated by it. He already possessed it, but even Mori was unsure what this dormant power was. He only knew it showed its face during storms and the lightning and the clouds and the rain and the thunder communicated with this inner power in a language he could barely grasp.

He stayed still, letting it speak to him now, somehow knowing that someday he'd understand everything it had ever said, accepting that he couldn't know yet. There were many things he could not know yet...and somehow he knew that Rora fell into that category.

The black Aavan only seemed to wake from his very still trance when the lightning departed, leaving him behind with a very mixed set of emotions, emotions that came from a depth of himself that he'd not yet reached, but sometimes affected his conscious actions and thoughts. Raw terror was the first that he was aware of, but it was fleeting, so very fleeting that Mori wondered if he'd felt it at all before it was swept away in hope, a very profound hope and sense of peace that made his entire being relax. He came back toward the shelter the Cerebra resided in then, the storm seeming to have settled, as if its entire purpose for forming had been for the black Aavan and now that its message was delivered, it was content to lessen in intensity.

Mori shifted down to his smaller form and it took him a minute, but he finally got up to the small 'cave' and gave Rora a smile that spoke of content weariness before he simply sank down and his body curled like a cat might, soaking wet and uncaring as the peaceful exhaustion hit - something that actually had very little to do with the last few days but rather the most recent event - and Mori's mind sank into the welcome darkness of sleep, the sound of the rumbling thunder a lullaby in his ears.
 
Last edited:
If she'd wanted to, Rora probably could have slept. Between the happy dissipation of the storm, and the Aavan's...nearness, even if he was no longer in her head, she might have slept the night, and done so without any nightmares, either, though she was used to them enough to avoid waking the Aavan.

But she also knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. The Aavan had been merciful both in his gift and his retreat. But she was scheduled to return to her own people before long, and it was best she reacclimatize to what her world had been before the long peace.

That...and once this long journey with Mori was over, she had no choice to return to reality. And there were many things about that which did not bode well.

First, and least of all, she had been missing now for over a week. Even if she wasn't missing with a notorious Aavan, even if she hadn't caused Sumilah hours and days worth of grief, she would have been in trouble simply for breaking tradition and breaking rules. Most city-born Cerebrae never left, unless required to do so by wartime or position. Dreamers, for example, often went when they were called, and the Matriarch made an annual trip to bless each village's first born birth cycle. But young Cerebrae, those still under the tutelage of their elders, were forbidden from leaving the city. Not only was it detrimental to learning habits, especially for gifted Cerebrae like Rora, but it was seen as both massively disrespectful and inherent dangerous. Rora could certainly speak to the second aspect, and any Pusher would be able to uncover it as evidence that she never should have left.

More pressing was the fact that she had torn apart both Risa's courtyard and the desert-snake with the power of her mind. She was not only a Telekinetic, but an impossibly powerful one. Only she wasn't a Telekinetic, she was a quietly useless Empath, the first in several generations. And then there had been the dreams, little snippets making themselves known, first with the desert, then the storm...But no. She was no Dreamer. And how could she possibly have Telekinetic powers? It was unheard of! Impossible! And yet...yet the proof lay behind her at the far edge of the desert.

And...in Risa's bloodied courtyard.

The Aavan's retreat had broken that spell, too. The dead Keeper. Risa's blood on her hands, her bloated face swimming in her mind. It was the peak of Cerebrae crime to kill another Cerebrae, even a Keeper. But to have murdered the next CloudDottir...and her own sister?

Rora suddenly had to shove the butt of her palm into her mouth to keep from wailing. No. The Aavan was exhausted, she could feel it. He had been for days, and hurting to protect her besides. She would not wake him. Not now. If she thought she could reach the desert floor, she might have been sick again, or just run off into the night...

But there was no running from this. Distance would make no difference. She was a monster, an amalgamation of all the worst of Cerebrae society. And she was a runaway and murderer besides.

So, no. There would be no rest for the wicked tonight.

She took a careful breath and pulled her hand from her mouth, only half trusting herself not to scream.

Rora was watching the Aavan sleep, feeling his mind swirl in a happy, sleepy content. She stared, wondering when everything had changed, and wondering what it had cost him to protect her from the truth.
 
-----

She'd been very quiet over the last day and now moving into the second, Mori was growing more concerned. It was a different type of silence than he was used to from the Cerebra and while he knew he didn't actually know...well, anything about Rora, he did know how she'd behaved for the near three or so weeks they'd been together and it was not like this, not unless something was wrong. She'd been this quiet after the Truscor attack, after she'd grown sick after sleeping in the river...there was always something that triggered said quiet, pensive tension and the black Aavan found himself glancing back at her often, wishing she'd speak, knowing she wouldn't.

He'd told her that they'd be with her people in another three days and if Mori had gauged her reaction correctly, it had almost seemed that she was...scared? Reluctant? Worried about going back. But she hadn't told him no or to not take her and so the village was where he kept heading, now able to see the treeline of the next jungle they'd pass through before coming upon the community. But he could not deny that the idea of leaving her made him inexplicably uneasy. He knew he didn't have right to be. She wasn't his even if he had formed a strange type of attachment to her, but...he didn't want to give her back. Maybe it was because she didn't actually seem to want to go back or perhaps it was for another reason - a selfish one on his part? - entirely, but the truth still stood that such was how he felt.

But the Aavan didn't speak of it.

She already had trouble with him helping her and this...would definitely be crossing some sort of line. They weren't friends. If anything they were two people working together to stay alive. He was growing fond of her, but Mori had great doubts that the feeling was at all mutual. Such were his thoughts, deep and slightly chaotic, when his foot descended into the nest. Truscor babies were small, very small, but these ones had been growing for at least a month and their venom sacks were fully developed. No bigger than the length of his leg, they were nearly as tall as Rora was and deadly even at this age.

The only fortunate part of this situation was that Truscor only had two or three offspring at a time.

One moment the sand was steady beneath him and the next it was swarming with three long bodies surging up from the earth. Mori gave a roar of pain as the first set of teeth sank into his underbelly where the scales were less resilient and he whipped his tail around, sending the next small attacker flying. Another set of teeth were snapping at his legs and the first Truscor tried to make a leap for Rora on his back while he dealt with the other - the third was still dazed in the sand a few feet away - and that was when Mori grew angry.

It came like a hurricane, sudden and swift upon him. He was not going to let anyone hurt her. He couldn't. That thought was like a bright puzzle piece snapping into place and the Aavan didn't question it as lightning flared over his body, a deep blue in color. It leaped and snapped across his entire frame and yet somehow it didn't lay one volt on the Cerebra upon his back. That was something Mori didn't notice at the moment though as streaks of the blue death shot out from him, hitting the three Truscor squarely. Their death cries were shrill, but quick as the lightning fried them and then came back to its keeper.

Mori swayed then and took a step toward the much more visible jungle before his form rippled, out of his control and he started to shift down to his smaller form, falling and letting Rora tumble from his back. His body started to shake and grow cold, the venom moving swiftly through his veins like burning fire. He wanted to scream at the pain, terror rising like a frothing foam in his mind, but his voice wouldn't work and the Aavan curled around his middle where the bite was, finding it increasingly difficult to breathe as the poison spread with a vengeful speed through his systems.
 
Last edited:
  • Love
Reactions: DotCom
The fear came in stages.

The first stage was simple, more surprise than fear, though there was a healthy dose of paranoid terror there, too. The Aavan had not been gone from her mind two days, and already the respite he'd offered seemed like a memory, or maybe a dream, except she hadn't been sleeping, so at least she knew it wasn't that. The darkness did not seem so sticky, nor so cloying as it had before -- if she tripped and fell into it, it would not drag her down at once. If she pulled herself out, it would not cling to her for days on end -- but it was all the more voracious for its forced starvation, made hungrier by the new knowledge of Risa's death.

She had been so wrapped up in questions and confusion, so consumed by her own self loathing and abuse of, over her terror of heading back to her people and facing Sumilah, that when she felt Mori falter, she started, simply as that. The sand gave way and rippled with treacherous bodies, and she was, quite simply, afraid.

But the true fear did not come until later.

She recognized the smaller desert snakes almost immediately and felt her heart seize up in a different kind of terror, as swiftly as though someone had shoved an icicle right through her chest. She forgot to breathe for a moment, forgot to move, forgot the desert and the Aavan, and even Risa as she stared and her own monstrosity loomed vast in the blackness.

She was not, she knew, afraid of the desert snakes. She had killed one much larger than they with ease.

No, it was the ease she was afraid of. It was the ability. It was the callous disregard for life that came in seeing a thing and thinking, "Yes. I can kill that." It was her own monstrosity, the fact that she was not what she thought she had been, but a cold-blooded abomination. If the beasts attacked, would she be able to keep from killing them? Would she remember? Would she even feel it? Would she --

And then one did attack, and she reached out without thinking and felt her Empath and Telekinetic gifts, whatever they were, come together. She seized into the thing's screaming mind and felt its being with a cruel singularity as she prepared to dissect it at the molecular level --

She blinked and it was gone. Lightning arced around and over her head, and she was not afraid. Or perhaps she was too afraid to feel fear, or too stupid, or too distracted, but she could only watch as the lightning dissipated and the desert-snakes died, screaming. She could feel their deaths, little plumes of black in her head that might have made her wince, if the pain in her belly hadn't grown, sharp and intense as a red hot poker just then.

She grunted and looked down, expecting to see a wound, and only then realized what was happening, and only then did the true fear begin.

Poison. She knew it instantly without knowing how, and not caring in the slightest. As soon as Mori began to waver beneath her, her mind was somewhere else, sorting through a hundred thousand useless facts about poisons she knew, and knowing none of it would help, because she'd never even seen a desert-snake before.

And she was scared. Scared, and angry. She'd never wanted to hurt anything before, and for good reason...but for one dark moment, she thought...

Rora was a strong Empath, and more besides, if recent events had anything to prove. Would it be so difficult to reach out, to simply feel along the sands for more of the desert-snakes? She was suddenly, horribly certain she could wipe them all out now, if it killed her...

She came back to herself with a gasp, realizing she was sitting on the sand, half blind with a rage she could name or place or recognize, and Mori writhing in an agony that nearly made her sick not half a foot away.

She was by his side in a second, and she didn't care that he could be pushy and condescending, and that they weren't friends, and she'd be leaving in a few days, anyway. She gave no thought to the fact that she could almost see the forest, could probably get out of the forest on her own at this point. She'd been watching him find those round fruits for days. She was not afraid of the desert's monsters...she was far scary than anything this sea of sand had to offer. Even the burning sand no longer seemed an issue somehow.

None of it even occurred to her, not even to question her own actions, or why she was suddenly so frightened or angry.

She hovered over him for a moment, watching him go pale, and colder by the minute, sweat beading on his brow. She was afraid to touch him, afraid to even breathe, and afraid he was going to die right there in front of her, and she could do nothing but watch.

Gods, what was the point of it all?! She was an Empath. And a Telekinetic. A Dreamer. And none of it could help! Not even the Whisperer's would be able to soothe this, not unless...

The idea struck, unbidden, the sort of thing not even a Prodigy might have dreamt of. But then no Prodigy knew of any creatures like Rora. Rora did not even know herself, but she knew she had to try.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe around the pain in her belly before tugging at the two strands she needed. Empath was easy. She had been Empath her whole life, even she she hated it. Healer was more difficult. It was a more refined branch of the Whisperer class. Very few were natural Healers. Even fewer were Healer and Empath both.

Okay. First: ease the pain. She reached out with her mind and curled hers around his, as he had protected her. This was different, though. This was not consciousness or thought. This was pain. A solid, red line of it trailing through body and mind. She found it, made it her own, and then put the healing touch to it. It would not be enough to heal him. The poison was still coursing through his body, she could feel that, too, and the next step would be extraction, a new puzzle for the jumble of things Rora had begun. But she would ease his pain first. Allow him to rest if she could. And then she would fight until the suns fell and rose a hundred thousand times if she had to.

"Shhh," she mumbled absently, only half aware she was even speaking. "I'll fix it. It's alright. I'll help. Just relax, Mori. Just rest. Sleep now. Let me take care of the rest."

She hadn't realized she was stroking his hair until his head was cradled in her lap. She knew then, with a fierce, almost crippling certainty, that she would die to save him.
 
  • Love
Reactions: Kaisaan
He could only feel the pain. There was nothing else. There was never anything else. Why had he hoped there would be? All he'd known for so long was pain and now it was back, molten flames that lapped cruelly at his nerves, tried to slow his racing heart and paralyze his lungs. He knew nothing else, was nothing else, could be nothing else but the pain. And yet he wanted to reach toward something, his mind was frantically searching for a connection it didn't have, but that one connection it longed for more than anything else. He couldn't name it, couldn't find it and more than the pain ever could, that made him want to cry forever, to curl into himself and sob for something he couldn't even identify, but needed.

He needed it so very badly, more than he needed anything else.

And then suddenly it was there. He felt it, wrapping around him and Mori's mind tried to reach back for it, but this comfort, this mind-touch that he needed was not truly reaching for him. It was around him, and the pain was leaving, but it wasn't trying to connect with his own mind. The agony dampened slowly and but the effect of the poison did not. He heard Rora's voice through a delirious haze, his body struggling to fight to breathe, to live. The poison was meant to kill slowly, to keep prey fresh but immobile if the Truscor wanted to save the meal for later, so while Mori wouldn't die right away, his body would slowly shut down, some areas faster than others.

It wasn't the residual pain or the fear or the affects of the poison that brought tears streaming down his skin to dampen his hair along with the cold sweat. It was the intense longing that swept over him. It was always there. When the pain or the sickness or even imminent death came upon him, it was there. And it was only growing worse, more demanding, struggling to reach something that would not acknowledge him. He could feel it now, so near and yet so very far away. He couldn't name it, he couldn't think clearly. His mind swam in heat, chaotic thoughts slow and racing in turns. He shivered violently, but his body attempted to curl closer to the comfort being offered, trying to trust the words that had barely made sense but were somehow reassuring and whether it was by his will or not, his mind slipped into darkness.

It was anything but peaceful, though.

His body went from cold, chilled really, to heated in no time, his heart slowing as sparks trailed across his skin. His lightning was doing its best to burn the venom out of his blood, but it was struggling and there was no guarantee that he'd be able to heal himself this way and more than anything it would exhaust him.
 
Rora had cried fewer times in her life than she had fingers on one hand. It wasn't to say she hadn't felt like it -- being an Empath made that an impossibility -- only that she hadn't ever allowed herself to. Another responsibility of an Empath. When other people's pains and fears were hounding you at all hours of the day, you couldn't just fold up and break down. You would never get anything done.

But as she felt the Aavan fall into a false slumber, fever ricocheting up the length of his body, she felt close. It was difficult to discern his tears from her own desire to scream, and so she shut them out completely. She had to for what she was going to do next.

Again, she called on that Empath thread, the most familiar and the most hated, and up until now, the most useless. It was easy to find the poison in his body, a foreign entity, hateful in a being so...not. He was shivering, and she was shivering, and she wanted more than anything to find a way to keep him warm, to offer him the comfort and protection he himself had offered her so many times now, but...how?

She felt a bitter curse of self-loathing bubble to her throat and find it's way to light.

"Sinitrus..." she spat coldly, and then tradition bade her flinch from the word. It was the worst possible thing to call a Cerebrae, a swear by any other name, though it meant only 'useless'.

Useless. Yes. Exactly. Sitting here, trembling, before the Aavan that had saved her life thrice over, and unable to do a thing but make his death more comfortable, if that. She still held his head cradled in her lap, still used the dirtied edge of her tunic to mop away the cold sweat beaded on his brow, but how -- ?

The thought came to her suddenly, as desperate and foolish as it was brilliant. She wrapped her will around the venom coursing through his bloodstream, made herself the poison, whimpered quietly at the mindless need to inhibit, to kill. All at once, she was killing Mori, slowly leeching the life from him, driving a fever into a high frenzy, as on that first night, after...

She pulled, and the wound on his belly bled horribly. For a moment, she was afraid she had just doomed him to a quicker death, but then the venom started to seep out as well, thick, viscous, treacherous as a snake in its own right. She held her breath, her head already swimming, and forced herself to focus. Extract only the poison, leave the blood. Take the pain, leave the life...

She went somewhere else while it happened. She didn't know how, or where, or how much time had passed, but when she opened her eyes, the venom had gone, leaving the blood purse and clean, if still entirely too little.

Swallowing, ignoring the sudden wave of exhausted dizziness washing over her, she reached over and lay a cautious hand against the wound.

"I'm sorry," she whispered hoarsely. "It's almost done. I'm almost done." Her hands felt slick with blood again, but this time, it was not a maddening desperation that overtook her, but an intense urge to be better than she was, be more, to repay Mori his life debt.

And somehow, the wound began to seal itself. There would no doubt still be pain, and fever. But the poison was gone. If there was a chance for the Aavan to live, this was the best one.

When the wound had sealed completely, not two minutes later, she kept his head cradled in her lap, and used the Telekinetics to tear a bandage from the bottom hem of her tunic. Gently, carefully, she bound the strip around his abdomen, as careful as she could be not to hurt him, whispering all the while:

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

I'm useless.
 
The presence, the mind-touch came back, but it brought such pain with it and Mori whimpered, wanting to flinch away from the pain, but wanting to accept the presence. It was a war in his mind, in his body and then the pain centered, spiked in his torso and the Aavan opened his mouth in a wordless cry of pain, his body shuddering with the tearing feeling running through him, the venom leaving his system, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. His power died down completely as weakness swept over the Aavan, blood-loss paling him rapidly, ceasing the shudders as he grew too lethargic to even do that.

Rora's hand elicited a soft whimper of protest, but he stilled at her words, somehow hearing them even in the darkness. He didn't understand what was happening, but he trusted that voice in a way he'd not trusted anyone in years. The pain lessened then and the Aavan slowly relaxed back into her, his eyes moving beneath his lids rapidly, searching and one coherent thought came to his mind, one thought that he pushed toward the presence he could feel with the last of his mental strength, not knowing if it would reach its goal, but hoping as the fever started to drag him further down into himself.

Not useless. My rainbow...mine...

He wouldn't remember it when he woke, hardly knew what he was saying now as he slipped further, deeper into the darkness. His body stilled, nothing but the shallow rise and fall of his chest giving testament to the fact that he was still alive.

---

Mori's fever spiked an hour later, his skin hot to the touch and he started to whimper and keen softly in long wails, his head starting to thrash slowly, emotions flaring as the heat in his blood did.

"Moridryn! Moridryn, come on!" The high-pitched voice belonged to a child with blond hair and gold-hued skin. Her orange eyes glowed with happy mirth as she turned to look back at the smaller child following in her wake. He was black of hair and pale of skin, violet eyes looking to her with the complete innocence of a very young child. He couldn't have been more than three and the girl appeared around seven. They moved through the jungle without shoes, creatures of the nature around them.

"Athethee, wait!"

A fanged smile answered the soft voice and Asesee held out her hand for her brother. Their hands never met. Terror exploded into their surroundings and Moridryn screamed, starting to cry immediately in fear, clutching his sister as her arms were around him almost instantly. She was running, but he looked over her shoulder, daring to see what was following them. It was his first look at Cerebrae, at the technology they could create and another scream left his mouth before he buried his head into his sister shoulder, not caring that she nearly dropped him several times in her mad dash to get away.

And then he was being put down, set into a hollow of some sort and he reached back for his sister, terrified even though she smiled at him. The expression was so very shaky, so very scared and determined, and she touched his cheek, ruffled his hair. "Be good, Moridryn. Stay quiet. Be very quiet, little brother. Shh..." She looked over her shoulder and back at him, tears streaming down his face and Mori would forever remember the fierce love that had swept over him from her, the resolve as she left then.

He knew when she was gone. The connection he'd shared with her since the day he was born was just gone in a flash of fear and pain, and Moridryn buried his head in his arms, sobs wracking his small body. But he didn't scream again. He would be quiet. He'd be good. And maybe his sister would come back.

But she never did.

Mori had started to sob. The fever took away every shield, every inhibition and the memory was so very vivid, so strong in his burning mind. He couldn't hope to hold back the tears.
 
Last edited:
  • Love
Reactions: DotCom
Time ceased to exist as she held him there. The suns began to set and Rora became vaguely aware she'd have to come up with some way to keep him warm...unless the fever -- no. No good to think that way. Her back ached and her arms ached and she was beginning to feel the exhaustion of having used foreign powers again, but she didn't care. None of it seemed to matter. She realized she was perfectly content to die if she thought she could save him some pain. She didn't know where this new fierceness had come from. She wouldn't have been able to explain it if anyone asked, and she certainly wouldn't want to discuss it if -- when he woke. It only became a goal, a single strand of fierce resolution to wrap herself around when she started to tire.

She could feel the fever almost before it came, and closed her eyes against it. It was cold, but he was so warm in her arms. She thought she had expended herself chasing away the venom, healing the bite wound...but she found she could almost regulate the fever, keeping it from raging hot enough to kill him, though what good was that when he was still suffering?

And he was, she could feel it. Her belly screamed in pain, her head felt heavy, her limbs immobile. But still she sat. As the second hour of the vigil came, she put out feelers again. They had passed a smaller stone not too long ago. She didn't dare try and move him there, not yet. Safety was not an issue -- she could and would kill anything that came upon them -- but she needed to get him water. It was an hour's work locating the small creature that hoarded the round fruits in the stone a quarter mile behind them. Wearing away at it with her Telekinetics, and transporting six of the small blue fruits through open air. She was sweating despite the cold by the time they reached her, but she didn't care.

"Okay," she said softly, moving carefully so as not to agitate the healing wound on his stomach, "Okay, you have to drink, okay? Just a little for now, just to help with the fever. Please, Mori...please drink. Please?"

She'd just gotten him halfway up, propped against her shoulder, when the nightmare started. She knew those well, could tell even when a stranger was having them twenty feet away, two rooms over. It was as close to normal people got to the swirling blackness she lived in, all chaos, pain, indecipherable fear. Her heart went out to him immediately and she wished and hated herself for not being able to do what he'd done for her.

Then again...she'd been playing with puzzle pieces all night. One more piece couldn't hurt. She needed to calm him down enough to get him to drink, anyway, and the effort...well, it wouldn't kill them. Not immediately, anyway.

She found her Empath thread again, and this time wove it with the Pusher thread she knew was there. There was no time to wonder, no time to revel in disgust at her own monstrosity. If it saved his life, she would take it gladly.

The Pushers were notoriously manipulative. The newborns often got in trouble for forcing non-Pusher friends into cruel games and taunts before those friends even knew what was happening. A bossy, ambitious Pusher had used to be a death sentence, a dictator in waiting. But sensitive ones could be kind. Rora stepped into that role now and spoke into Mori's mind, soothing, gentle, as kind and as firm as she could be. She wasn't experienced enough to speak sentences or force him into anything. But she could speak single word commands...maybe it would help. She had to try.

Rest...peace...still...sleep...You're...not alone. You're not alone. You're not alone...

She didn't realize she was crying, too, until she saw a single tear fall into his hair, and reeled back, embarrassed and ashamed.

"Please," she whispered again. "Please don't die. Please don't leave me out here alone. You...you promised, okay? Please...I'll do anything, just don't...don't go."
 
  • Love
Reactions: Kaisaan
He searched for her in every Aavan he saw, in every captive, in every guard, every pet. They were trying to train him, tame him, break him, but he didn't pay them any attention. They were not worth the effort, not when he had so little strength as it was with the starvation and the pain. He had to find her. He had to focus on that, on finding Asesee. That was why he was here, but each day it grew harder to even distinguish who she might be. It was nothing like he'd thought it would be. He'd thought that...that his people would still communicate, that he'd be able to find her, feel her, but there was nothing. A few older Aavan spoke to him, but they only advised that he stop fighting so hard.

They had given up. The had been starved and beaten, mind-neglected for so long that they weren't even Aavan anymore. They didn't remember. And the younger ones were so much worse. They didn't communicate at all, their minds closed off, unable - or perhaps they'd forgotten how - to connect with their own kind. Asesee was one of these. He came to realize that and then he came to anger and grief, and finally the pain started to touch him.

His circumstance started to affect him and Mori spiraled into darkness, realizing that no one cared, no one could help, there was no one.

The voice whispered through his mind then and the dream wavered, cracked, bled away, leaving him in the blackness, but listening. He recognized the Pusher power immediately. His entire being rebelled against it and his mind grew hostile instantly....but then the words registered. They were not commands, not harsh or cruel, and his feverish consciousness hesitated, the volatile reaction fading away as the presence bled through the Pusher power....was the Pusher power?....and he immediately went toward that. He found he could touch it now. The presence had reached toward him and Aavan's body relaxed almost instantly upon making gentle, tentative contact with the other mind, warmth washing over him, so very different than the fever's heat.

A soft warble left his throat then and a deep, rumbling and yet incredibly soft sound started in his chest; a purr. His mind settled, wrapping around the presence within his head in a rather content, possessive manner. He didn't want it to leave. It wasn't nearly enough, not enough to quell the wild longing deep within him, but it was something and it was helping, probably so much more than the presence realized. It wasn't the Pusher ability that decided Mori, that calmed him and made him compliant. It was the words and the feeling of the other mind itself.

He wasn't alone.

And when liquid entered his mouth, he wasn't awake to really register it, but he didn't struggle and he drank it before slipping off again in a truer fashion, fever steady, but no longer climbing.

-----

It was a different darkness. So very different in a way he could not hope to accurately describe. It was all-consuming, the light disappearing before it even came in contact with it. It moved and built, a cloying ink that started to devour everything in sight and Mori ran. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get away and the blackness followed. It swallowed up the jungle and it chased him to the desert.

The Aavan stopped then, watching as it rolled in a cloud of destruction behind him, crawling its way across the sand, devouring the burning sea of grains. He watched as the Truscor started to flee, everything driven before this unnatural storm and suddenly violet eyes were drawn to the city in the distance. The Cerebrae. He had to get to them. He had to warn them. He had to help his people, the Cerebrae people. This would kill them all.

His feet took off, wings beating the air, taking him into the sky, but the darkness chased him, reaching out like a hand to try and pluck him from the sky. He didn't know how long he evaded it before he felt the darkness touch him. It was freezing, a burning cold that made him roar in pain as his flight grew erratic and he eventually plummeted to the ground below. He landed just at the edge of the darkness and felt a wing snap. The pain jolted fire through him, but he didn't cry out again, looking to the hungry darkness coming fast upon his form and then to the city in the distance.

He wouldn't make it. He didn't have to.

The blackness crept over him, devouring him in raw terror and Mori cried out, not with sound, but in his mind, a heart-cry that would say everything needed as the blackness overwhelmed him in a freezing numbness and he knew nothing more.

Mori's eyes flew open and the keening scream that left his mouth was like nothing any Cerebrae would have ever heard from any Aavan. It was so shrill it almost lost tone at certain octaves and it simply went on, longer than any scream possibly could. It was a call and it echoed in the air even when it cut off, somehow making the very atmosphere crackle with some unnamed power, a ripple that went out far and wide.

And Mori drew in a few, frantic, ragged breaths before his searching eyes snapped to green ones and the Aavan's were terror-stricken, knowing of something he could not even name. "It's coming...it's coming..."

His eyes rolled back into his head and he knew nothing more, not even that the fever broke. He'd have no more dreams tonight.
 
Last edited:
She had felt the dream more like a vision, building in her own mind while it played in Mori's.

She'd thought it was exhaustion at first. He was not well, but the horrible nightmares had stopped, and he had all but settled in her arms. She'd managed to feed him four of the fruits, tearing off the skins and squeezing the juice into his mouth one handed. Her fingers were sticky, and her own throat felt dry, but she didn't care. He was alive. He wasn't leaving for the moment, and that was enough.

She'd been stupid enough to think when he drank, he'd recover. Wake up, and tell her...tell her anything, or nothing, but he would be awake, alive, alright. But when true sleep came, it only got worse.

Rora hadn't slept since the night of the storm, and had been tired before Mori fell ill. But that had been several hours ago, and as night fell, hunger and thirst made themselves known, echoed by the bone-deep exhaustion of having used more gifts than any one Cerebra ought to have. Emapthy, Telekinetics, Healing, and now Pushing? More than once, she found herself nodding off, before a soft sound from Mori reminded her of what she stood to lose if she failed in her vigilance. She felt out again in all directions, nearly half a mile, checking for more desert-snakes, forcing her exhausted mind awake. She might have stood and walked around, if she weren't hold the feverish Aavan. He was still so hot to the touch.

That was when things grew worse. She had no doubt the nightmare was worse for its clarity, and yet on this side of consciousness, half asleep herself, she could only see thoughts and dull images. She sensed abject, primal fear, dark shapes, a hunter and its prey, a pursuit of the most treacherous kind. There was something dangerous, something much, more more destructive than a desert-snake or 100 desert-snakes. She could feel it, and not just in fear, but in the darkness itself, feel its hunger and malice and its unstoppable power --

Her heart all but stopped at the climax of the dream when Mori screamed, half fearing him dead, half fearing them all dead, not just these two, but Sumilah, Siya, Rogan, and all the others. The Aavan, the outer city villages. The entire planet, destroyed, a hundred thousand millions voices crying agony inside her head.

Mori woke to speak just two words, sending her blood to such a chill she began to shake and could not stop until the first of the suns began to rise the next morning. She didn't say another word all night, though she set about building them a wall. It took three hours, and desert stones from deep beneath the sand. She knew well that whatever Mori had seen would not be stopped by a two-foot stone wall, but she also knew if she didn't do something, no matter how exhausting, she would break and run.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kaisaan
He woke with a mind that was fogged. It was hard to think, but the Aavan found that he didn't much have a desire to as he blinked slowly, looking up at the lightening sky. It was surprisingly bright to him, as if he'd expected to wake to darkness. The thought was a slow, but fleeting one before his violet eyes flickered away from the sky and instead to the body he could feel under his head. At least he thought it was a- oh, yes, it was. The Aavan tilted his head just slightly, looking upside down at the dark hair, multi-colored splattered face and green eyes of the very familiar Cerebra he'd been traveling with.

She looked exhausted, haggered really....and the sight of her instantly brought a smile to curl at his lips. His eyes were slightly hazy with the weakness the fever had deposited into him, but he was no longer in any danger of dying and the fever - and shared body warmth - had kept the chill of the night at bay. He was a bit sluggish from the cold and the fever's effect, but both would pass given time.

For now he simply looked up at the Cerebra, feeling incredibly safe with her in that moment, like he'd found where he belonged. But perhaps that was just his foggy mind speaking. Either way, Rora was the most happy, content-inducing face he could have seen in that moment and Mori started to purr again, unable to help it, not wanting to. He didn't care if she heard it. He was warm and tired and he wasn't alone. That was all he knew, all he needed to know. So many times he'd woken after being sick to utter silence, to cold chains and bars, to watchful eyes, but no comfort. To have it now was something he'd not expected - actually, he'd not much thought about it at all - and his body, mind, even spirit drank deeply of the Cerebra's presence. He wasn't alone.

Mori looked around again then, slowly, growing confused at the sight of the...wall? Was that a wall? What...where...? He turned his head, looking back up at Rora and his voice rasped, as if he'd been screaming a great deal. He didn't remember if he had. "Little r-rainbow...what is..." The Aavan looked back to the wall and then to her. "that?"

Had he missed something?
 
Even half delirious with exhaustion and a wild, growing paranoia, she could not deny how she felt her heart soar when the Aavan finally awoke. She thought for a moment that she was dreaming, only it was so happy a dream, she didn't much mind. She was pushing three days without sleeping, and the night's events had left her sorely exhausted, and half crazed with fear that the Aavan would leave her, that whatever was 'coming' would somehow take him away from her, and everything she'd poured into saving him would be lost, making her nothing more than the monster she'd become the moment she killed Risa.

Only he wasn't dead. At least not now. Countless nightmares of his death and worse, and this was the only one to see him alive. She smiled down at him as he looked up at her, and giggled sleepily when he began to...purr, was the only term for it, really. Without thinking, she reached up and smoothed dark hair from his face again, as she had been doing for hours. Her hands were shaking now. She had been exhausted before putting up the wall, and now...

But she didn't want to take it down, not even when he mentioned it. The words sparked a moment's panic in her head. Down? Out of the wall? No. Never, not if she could help it. There were things outside the wall, monsters like her, storms and snakes and shadows and worse, ready to hunt, hurt, kill. No, she wasn't taking down the wall until she was sure he was better. Not if it killed her.

She shook her head and made sure her voice was even. "Nothing," she said. If she'd been herself, she might have blushed at the nickname. But she was so scared, her mind buzzing with the what-ifs, and something somehow more sinister than the darkness.

"It's nothing. It's alright. Just rest. Just sleep."
 
Her touch made his eyes threaten to close, his lids still heavy, but the purring deepened. Touch, it meant so much to his species and more so to an Aavan who'd been deprived of it, and Mori felt absolutely no desire to move. He didn't know why Rora was doing this, taking care of him, but right now he didn't want to question it - he just wanted to accept it because the faint warning voice in his head told him it wouldn't last. Whatever her reasons for doing so, they would be gone soon and he would alone again, no matter how close she actually was, he'd be alone. The thought caused the barest sound of a whimper in the back of his throat, but the noise was drowned out by the Cerebra's answer of his question.

Nothing. It was nothing and he should sleep.

Mori found himself nodding, trusting what she told him was true - he couldn't remember any different - but while his body craved to obey her gentle command, to rest and let himself slip back into a more healthy darkness of true slumber, her shaking had not gone unnoticed. Nor her ragged appearance or the giggle - he'd never heard her giggle. She was beyond tired. When was the last time she'd slept? How long had he been out? How...how was he still alive?

The questions brought a frown as he looked back up at the female, his violet eyes still hazed over with what looked like sleepiness but was in reality still residual sickness. Her green eyes looked as glazed as his with fatigue. "You should sleep, too." His hand felt heavy when he moved it, but move it he did, his fingers touching the ends of her hair and giving part of it a gentle tug, an affectionate action that he didn't even have to think about. "You'll get sick." he admonished.

It was the last thing he wanted. She'd done something. He could see it, sense it and whatever it was, it had kept him alive. He was grateful, but it didn't stop his desire to make sure it wasn't at the risk of her own sanity, her own life. What would be the point then?

It wasn't like he wanted to live without her.

And that thought...maybe it was just the sickness dulling his reactions...but it didn't startle him like it would have before the venom struck his system. It seemed natural now, even if he didn't understand why.
 
She nodded almost too quickly at the suggestion, eyes wide and just a bit unfocused.

Yes, okay, sure, anything, of course. Whatever you want, I'll do it, just don't...

It was a moment before Rora realized the words, tinged with a touch of hysteria, weren't making it to her lips, and for just a moment, the maddening self-hatred threatened to wash over her again.

Stupid, she thought vehemently, her mind wandering for a moment. She'd nearly forgotten about Mori, though one hand kept stroking her hair errantly. He was so tired, she could feel it, he needed to sleep, needed to rest, or -- or --

But he won't, whispered that venomous voice in the back of her mind. Because now he's worried about you. Stupid. Stupid! you were supposed to be better, be stronger, hide it, or he'll never rest, and you'll be all alone again with me...

Rora hid the whimper only at the last minute and smiled down at Mori, her voice and eyes gentle.

"Okay," she nodded. "I will. I'll sleep, I promise. I...I can do both. The wall. And the fruit -- for water, and...and do you need something to eat? I can keep watch, I can, I can put out...sentries, sort of, it's all like a puzzle, I can -- I'm an Empath, and...the Pusher...and Telekinetic, I can...sand golems, almost, they'll know, I'll know, I'll feel it, if anything tries to come, and we, we'll be safe here, okay? I can do it, I can do it all, just don't...please be okay. Just go to sleep, okay? I'll take care of you. I'll take care of everything. Just don't...don't leave me here alone."
 
Her demeanor, her words, they alarmed him.

She wasn't all right. He was out of danger now. He merely needed to sleep, but she...she was verging on the madness again. He could feel it, hear it, see it. He knew it like he'd known so many things before without knowing why and he knew he couldn't let it happen. Her last words, those were what struck him the hardest, and Mori didn't know where it came from, but the strength did come and he moved. His body protested it and his stomach seemed to burn as he sat up, but it was a distant pain, unimportant as he turned, and without hesitation, gathered the Cerebra into his arms. He pulled her close, his cheek resting on her head and his eyes closed.

You are not alone. You will never be alone. You have never been alone. I have searched for you among the stars, I have longed for your forever and I have found you. You are mine. You are not alone. I am here and you will never be alone.

The words wanted to tumble from his lips, but this tongue wouldn't work, his throat wouldn't create the sounds, so his mind did what his voice could not. He could still feel her, the connection she'd initiated and this time when his own mind came into hers, it came upon that track, that thread, following it back to her own consciousness. A Two-Way Bond. It was small, tenuous, but it grew visibly stronger like the thinnest wire only able to be detected in the glinting sun at the right angle. The blue thread of his mind was carefully, slowly weaving itself into the charcoal color of her own mind-thread, a connection that bridged their two consciousnesses.

The Aavan's mind finally touched her own fully and then the blue gently filtered in, not searching for thoughts or invading memories, but rather finding the darkness and snapping at it with flashing fangs. It retreated before him. It knew him from before, but even this was new to it. To be challenged, to be threatened was not something it knew from the mind it dwelled in and Mori found very little fight from it this time around. He couldn't get rid of all of it and didn't try. He merely created a haven around Rora's sanity once more. It was different this time, though. It didn't strain him and the only explanation for it was her presence in his own mind. It was a loop. Whether she realized it or not, she was feeding into him; comfort, safety, care and herself. She was keeping his mind stable and in turn that allowed his body to focus on simply repairing itself instead of fighting the demons in his head. And he, in turn, was now feeding the strength of his mind into her, into the exhaustion of her thoughts and the hysteria, stabilizing, bringing clarity, bringing energy.

A cycle, a circle, no one giving more than the other. Such a simple system this thin thread was, but Mori knew it could be so much more. He didn't press, though. He only gave Rora what she needed, only took what she offered and still holding her close, he laid back into the sand, pulling her with him. He curled around her, hardly even fully conscious anymore, but he did speak a few words as his eyes drew shut.

"Not alone. Sleep." His hand touched the back of her head, gentle, comforting and yet completely comforted at the same time just to have her near. "Sleep."
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DotCom
She wanted to protest, in the worst way, when he sat up and held her. Never mind that for a moment, she felt calm, safe, protected. She knew only that this was wrong, he was sick, dying, that if she didn't stop him, didn't help him, he would be gone forever, and she would be left to deal with what she was on her own. The thought terrified her, sending a scream from the very bottom of her heart to shatter, break the air, crush the silence --

And then something happened. She was too tired or too stupid to understand, or perhaps never meant to, but it didn't matter, and for once, she didn't look for answers. There was a sudden, soothing presence, and she was too desperate for the calm to push it away. She let it engulf her, and the relief was immediate, as gentle as cool water over a burn. She vaguely remembered her Aavan there, holding her, and thought she ought to say something, but a quiet, contented sigh was the only thing that left her lips. She was nearly asleep before she realized it, though she couldn't remember having even closed her eyes. She curled in on instinct, her physical body closer to Mori, her mind welcoming the soft, cool presence there.

She wanted to protest -- was he doing this? Could he spare the energy? What if he grew sick again? What if he had to leave again? What if, what if, what if -- but the presence would not let the swirling blackness in, and she was soon powerless to fight against it anymore. Not long after that, she realized she no longer wanted to.

She was gone by the time he pulled her down, letting his last words lull her to sleep even as the wall she'd built around them finally shuddered and gave up. Rora didn't notice and didn't care. There was a respite here, and quiet certainty that even if they both slept, they would recover, protected by no more than each other's presence.

She was fast asleep not a moment later, she, too, forgetting the guilt and the fear, letting the exhaustion alone rule her, letting it drag her deep, deep down. And yet somehow, that one word reached her lips anyway, just as it had the first time she'd drifted off in his arms:

"Mori."
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kaisaan
-------

Mori thought they slept on and off for about two days - three? - only drinking, eating when they thought they needed to, but mostly they simply seemed to hibernate. When they both woke and seemed better able to function, to truly wake and think, to move without feeling like their limbs were underwater, it seemed that what they'd shared had been a dream. A very good dream, but somehow distant. They'd risen, started to move out again without many words, not really needing them. The silence wasn't uncomfortable or tense or awkward, it simply was. Even now Mori was unsure if that thread between them was actually still there, actually real and some part of him didn't want to truly search and find out. If it was there, it was dormant now, humming away in a deep place within his mind. But perhaps it wasn't there at all anymore, severed when he woke, when she woke, only activated by the circumstances they'd been in.

He wasn't sure which one would worse; still being connected and yet unable to do anything with said connection; or to not be connected at all, same as before.

So he didn't look.

The Aavan, he didn't want to know. He wanted the dream, whatever had happened, to be a good memory in his mind, something he could look back on and remember, real or not. It had been nice. It had been something he'd not had since he was very young and he would not ruin it by trying to dissect it.

So he focused on traveling again, this time through the jungle. It took all of two and a half days to get through the small patch of greenery before the land opened up into the dry landscape once more, but not desert. It was rocky, the stones having changed from a deep red in the desert to a chalky gray that only darkened the further one traveled in the Eastern direction. It was something Mori would not do. This place, this gray rock made him nervous enough and as he looked down from a rocky outcrop to the village below - a place with high walls and glittering buildings that caught the light, a small city more than anything - that sliver of unease only seemed to grow.

His violet eyes looked back at the Cerebra on his back, knowing he would have to give her up now and the desire to turn around and run from this place, to spirit her away was a strong one that he barely kept in check. Instead he merely spoke, voice quiet but even. "I will take you near the walls, but I can not go close, Rora. I...I can't be captured again."
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom
Back