🐉 = Of the fantastical elements in their world what does your character actually find strange, or hard to believe?
The Echo @kalaisgreen
The children were fetched and collected into a single-file line. Most stole quick, nervous glances across each other as the group was corralled into the largest ger of the forest camp, their small tails flicking anxiously back and forth as their nub-horned heads stayed low. To face the unknown was to face terror and here there were no mamas or papas to run to for comfort. The grown folk that were present opted for silence and grunted commands and pointed fingers that ended in elongated claws.
A crackling stove fire large enough to cook three dzo thighs seethed beneath a bubbling cauldron hung from chains and the bones of animals. The hiss of flame and warbling beat of buffeting wind against the ger’s hide walls muffled the whispers of whimpering boys and fearful girls.
‘Have you seen my parents?’
‘What are we doing here?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘This place is bad.’
Arozand stayed quiet, kept his eyes forward. He watched the woman by the fire tending the cauldron with a long wooden stirring rod. She did not return his gaze but uttered a command to the lot of them.
“Sit,” she offered with a gesture of her hand through the air. Bone fragments and beads clicked together with the movement, the bracelets adorning her arm jostling freely.
“You are here because I have chosen you, plucked you from death, spared you the bloody fate that is life in this place. Your iloh have burned, your parents are gone, you have nothing to return to. You will stay here, and live. Learn. Grow… Survive,” she continued, regardless of what the children did. Most of them began sobbing on the spot as she reminded them of their tragedies.
Arozand stayed quiet, kept his eyes forward. A momentary flash of red and the echo of feverish screams thundered through his mind. His eyes felt hot, like the fires of his memory struggled to burn the vision into his mind. He squeezed them shut and blinked away the beginnings of tears, furrowing thick brows to fight them back.
She was staring at him when he looked again, black sclera and irises the color of lightning. The limbal rings around them glowed like a live wire, crackled with electric potency. Her stirring had stopped as she held his gaze and for all the vile odor of fear that permeated the ger, he could not look away until she did. Arozand dropped his stare to the floor, finding solace in the sight of his dirty feet still standing. He noticed that the rest of the children had taken seats and he was the last one standing in the midst of his shock. While others fought and shoved for the middle seat to rest their backs against the wooden beam, he chose an empty spot off to the side.
The woman stood, easily as tall as any man he had seen. Her tail extended far beyond her legs and would have dragged over the ground had she lacked the strength to lift the limb herself, which bobbed and flicked from side to side as she headed for the entrance. She spoke momentarily to the man and woman keeping watch, directing them to leave before she hoisted up a strange object in one hand. It was ornamented unlike anything he had seen before. The Oronir of his iloh surely never made things like that.
Clutched under her arm was a horned skull of some large beast missing the top of its cranium, clearly carved out to serve as a vessel of some kind. Black obsidian spheres replaced its absent eyes with the sable gleam of chilling discomfort. Nothing here was made to soothe, everything was a sharp or jagged edge and the elders had been fashioned by them.
The altar was set down ahead of the fire with a heavy thud. The woman spoke again.
“You must pass a trial. Each one of you. It is a test of discovery, to prove you possess what living as one of us demands. The strength of the pack is the wolf and the wolf must bleed for the pack,” she explained as she reached to her fur-lined belt, drawing a knife perfectly wicked enough for something just like this.
“One of you will be first. You will drink from the pot, then you will give me your hand. If you succeed, you will eat your fill and sleep easy tonight,” she offered, turning to take a decanter and run it through the bubbling cauldron until it was full and steaming. One eager boy, scrambled to his feet, stomach rumbling and sped up to the altar beside the woman. She observed him momentarily before pushing the lip of the decanter to his lips. He drank of the oily liquid until she pulled it away. There was nothing left but the knife as he wiped his mouth on the back of his arm only to offer it.
She took him by the wrist and leveled the knife’s point over his forearm only to pierce skin and flesh like a needle until scarlet blood flowed and rolled out of the wound. The woman pulled his arm over the open skull of the beast, letting his blood drip into the cavity and stain ivory bone with red. The children watched as sacrament was offered, the woman’s eyes raised to the heavens through the open ceiling in numinous observation of the stars as they clustered and gleamed through the night.
Almost immediately afterward, the boy let forth a shuddering cry and would have reeled backward onto the ground were it not for the woman’s iron grip on his wrist. He buckled at the knees and squeezed his face with his free hand, eyes wrinkled shut and tears flooding down reddened cheeks. He was hanging against the altar writhing like a wounded snake, held up by his blood-soaked arm. The woman knelt down and slid her hand over the puncture, squeezing to help it clot as she scooped up the boy in one arm and cradled him as he shook and kicked like something possessed.
The children stared in horror, entirely incapable of comprehending what unfolded before them. The entire ger was surging with a strange, unintelligible force that rippled out in waves from the boy. It was heavy, palpable as gravity yet ethereal and intangible as moonlight. Nothing could have prepared any of them for this otherworldly demonstration, but someone had to be next. Soon enough the boy went still and roused from his fit of madness, big eyes blinking away confusion until he looked around. A mark had formed on his arm where the knife had struck his flesh, a shape that darkened and grew before his very eyes.
“You did well. Go, eat,” the woman stated as she set him on his feet and nudged him away. The guard woman from before entered the ger and offered to take his hand, grinning at his success with a mouth full of fangs. They talked of dzo stew as they left, passing the group of children quietly but not enough to spare them the temptation of a much-needed meal. They would have begun clambering for their turn were it not for a sudden stomp of the woman’s boot onto the ground.
“You, boy. You are next,” she called, staring at the golden-eyed Oronir youth. Arozand. The least eager of them all.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
A Raen lays sprawled under the covers of an infirmary bed, lit only by the light of a few candles.
In her dreams, the sun shines down from a clear sky. Water sparkles in the air as she jumps from the shallow shore and into the green-blue sea. He is following her, watching with a loving smile.
The Raen dives underneath the surface of the water, her eyes shut tight against the burning salt as she swims further and further out into the cool ocean.
When she surfaces, she turns to see him. He’s also a Raen, barely into his adulthood wearing the awkward smile of a first-time lover. He’s on fire, flames engulfing his form and cooking his flesh. She calls to him, but her cries are silenced by a wave crashing into the back of her head.
When she surfaces, she sees him again. Now, he is a Xaela. Tall and dark-skinned, with wild black hair. His golden eyes looked to her, then away. He turns his back to her. She calls to him more desperately, until another wave silences her.
Her hands come to her eyes and rub away salt-water tears. Her vision is blurry, and the light pains her as she looks back to the shore, farther away than ever before. He’s standing there, an older Xaela with pale skin. He wears his age well, looking handsome and wise. He holds out his hand to her with a sad smile, and she lunges for it, but he’s too far away.
The ocean swallows her once more, and the currents carry her away.
((the characters of @arozand-xiv and @eorzeanelder are featured in this story))
