#inali

Inali stumbled through the undergrowth, deliberately crushing unfamiliar plants under the pads of her feet and taking the extra time to let her claws rip at the soil with every step. Her feathers were soaked to the bone, but she didn’t shiver—despite the now-torrential rain beating down on her, the heat was overwhelming. She thought of Karranis.

She respected him. She believed in his goals and vision. She even liked him in a rudimentary way. But he could be like this damnable forest, awesome in its strangeness but absolutely draconian in its demands. She felt as though she were running a gauntlet, barely avoiding whipping foliage that seemed hell-bent on lashing her with the aid of the wind. The peaceful rain she was so used to in Rito Village didn’t recognize her here, instead assaulting her with a brutality comparable to a volley of arrows. Karranis had sent her to this goddessforsaken territory with a barely-explained plan, and with Kheel of all people.

Kheel. She scratched at the earth in anger and tried not to scream—not that anyone would have heard her. She was so disappointed. She had told Karranis that Kheel might try something idiotic if they were placed together on this mission, and Karranis had dismissed her worries yet again. She knew she would have to reel him in, but she didn’t expect another marriage attempt, and in front of potential allies. Was Kheel trying to ruin the plan? Was he so obsessed with humiliating her that he would self destruct to do it? He must have some kind of fetish for being humiliated himself, what with all the cringe-worthy attempts he’d made against her that only ended in total embarrassment.

“He would, wouldn’t he!” she screamed in her thoughts. “I’ll give him what he wants, then. I’ll give him his shame. I’ll hang him by his feet from the Village pinnacle when we’re back!” She clawed at the earth in a few more steps, before spotting a flash of grey through the oppressive greenery. She paused, then changed course to investigate.

Inali battled her way through vines and ferns, and defended herself against the rain and wind, until finally she saw something that distracted her from her rage. In front of her was a clearing, filled with enormous stone ruins. There were relief carvings of strange figures on cyclopean blocks of grey stone that—despite her lack of artistic or archeological knowledge—intrigued even her. She thought of Ikki for a moment and wondered what that woman would say.

“It’s a metagraphic, ice-neous, sentrimentry… god’s blood, who knows.” She chuckled and gave up trying to remember. Her mood was starting to improve already. Inali figured the ruins could give her a little break from the meteorological onslaught while she thought on what to do next.

She missed the click-clack sound of talons on wood that were ubiquitous in Rito Village; here, the ground was so packed with earth and plants that a step barely made a sound at all. She quietly trotted to a wall and looked for shelter. She found, however, that the wind roiled and swirled the rain through the air in that perfect, particular way that made it impossible to find a good angle with shelter.

“Imagine,” she thought, “if we could weaponize this storm. No man would be safe.” She found as good a spot as any, slightly more protected from the rain than the open field, and sat. She was wet, she was furious, and she was exhausted. But at least she was alone.

            She heard rustling nearby and froze. Kheel wouldn’t be this stupid, to follow her out here—no, he wasn’t a proficient enough tracker on the ground to be able to find her. Especially not in this mess of plants and rain. She listened as best as she could, and determined quickly that whoever was moving towards her was making no effort to be subtle or secret. The fact that she could hear someone moving through the underbrush meant they were crashing through it, like she had done earlier. Maybe it was an angry Kheel… but this person sounded heavy. It could be one of the Zora.

            She peeked around the stone wall, and saw a very familiar figure. What was this guy’s name, again? It was one of the Dracozu, the mid-sized one with the brilliant purple scales and the funny whiskers poking out from his face. What was this one doing out here? He must be looking for her. She wondered what had happened after she left. What had Kheel told them?

            “She’s a wench! She needs some girl time, you know, how girls do!” Inali rolled her eyes, imagining the stupid things that probably snaked out of Kheel’s beak. Was it the stupidity that made him hate women, or was it some traumatizing past history? Didn’t he have a mother? Maybe he just had the hate in him already, and he figured it was easiest to unleash it on the opposite sex.

            The Zora saw her as she pondered the mysteries of Kheel.

            “Shit!” Inali whipped herself back behind the wall. No, wait… The Zora wasn’t necessarily an enemy, so there was no reason to be this defensive. Being wary was essential, but this fearfulness wasn’t. She looked back around the wall.

            Inali recoiled in shock.

            The Zora was speaking to some thing towering over him. Inali almost couldn’t make sense of it. She was seeing fog, or smoke? Somehow the dark mass stood stationary, and its wispy tendrils were unaffected by the rain or wind. It was almost like an optical illusion, where the curling ends of the smoke disappeared into itself rather than escaping into the air—she couldn’t adequately explain it.

            Inali put a hand on her hip, on her knife, and stood to her full height. She was taller than the Zora but he definitely outclassed her in terms of weight. She had no idea what to expect from the smoke, or if it was even a threat.

            “Hello!” The Zora turned from the smoke to Inali. “We’ve found you. Excellent.”

            “What is this.” Inali meant to ask a question, but it came out as a statement. She was controlling herself and her emotions as much as possible in the face of so much confusion.

            The Zora was all smiles. “We’ve come to return you to the camp. Your man said you were returning to your village?” He smiled at her, but here was something off about his eyes. He was squinting too much.

            Inali hesitated. “…Kheel was mistaken. We had a disagreement, yes, but I’m not going anywhere.” She looked back and forth at the Zora and the smoke. “What is the… what is that?”

            The Zora beckoned to her and started walking, in the opposite direction from whence he came. “Please, we need to get back to camp. I don’t think you’ll survive out here alone.”

The black fog remained. What was going on? Inali stared at the smoke in bewilderment and no small amount of fear. What was worse—the thing itself, or her inability to understand what it was? She didn’t know what to think.

            The Zora paused and stared at her for what felt like an eternity. “You don’t look well. Are you alright?” He moved towards her.

            Inali was almost hypnotized by the eldritch, inky blackness. She was trying to make sense of what was happening and what this thing was.

            And then, the Zora had her arm in a grip so tight she yelped in surprise. One tug sent her stumbling to the side, too distracted to maintain her footing and too waterlogged to tap into the physical grace she normally relied on. She crashed into the Zora’s side. She instinctively pulled her blade out from her hip and plunged it into the Zora’s scales. He twisted his shoulder as quick as the wind, and the blade glanced off his hide with a clink that made Inali’s heart jump into her throat. Her thoughts came at a million miles a second. “Natural armor? Aim for the belly!”

            Alas, she got no chance to change her tactic. The Zora threw his arms around her and trapped her in the tightest hug she’d ever experienced. He tipped her further to the side, moving with the momentum already pulling them down, and fell to the ground. Inali’s head hit, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to daze her for one second.

            And one second was all it took for the ugly red eyes in the smoke to open, and for the smoke to blast forward to where Inali and the Zora lay.

            And then, everyone was gone. The only trace left to suggest a brawl had ever taken place was quickly brushed away by the weather.

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Uh ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! THE PLOT THICKENS!!! I hurt my arm and I'm finding it much easier to type than to draw, tragically. So here you go... giving some writing the good old college try... if you see typos please scream at me.

Anacharsis is an old Scythian (modern day Eastern Iran) philosopher, so, no made up quote for today. I think it's a very fitting one for this chapter though.