(Flashback) Birth Pains (Ifran)

[Corvus]

10th of Fall, 511 Rebirth The First Night Tethered. Warm. Oblivious. His last real thoughts before he slipped through the crack that should have been sealed; rushing through the fabric that wasn’t woven tight enough to hold him, towards an end he could not even fathom. Where was his god as he was being ripped away from the life that he’d earned; raped right under his majestic nose? The band around his chest tightened. All of it was gone, left behind him. Memories faded, then disappeared as he plunged at a vicious clip into an empty world, taking his last minute bitterness with it. The feeling of warmth being cocooned in a celestial womb had been violently stripped away in the pause of a heartbeat. First cold. Then terror. In that order. There was nothing in between. No more tumbling memories to know were being lost. When he hit the water with a sickening splash, pain splintered his senses. He clawed for the surface, but wasn't able to gain purchase in the nothing that stretched around him. More of the cold. Arms and legs he didn’t remember how to use flailed frantically, feeling slowly seeping back into them; an army of pin pricks marched under his skin, setting it on fire. Fire in the cold made it burn. In the inky depths of that despair, he thrashed, struggling to pull air into lungs that didn’t work, in a body that was built for the heavens. He was too alone and too afraid to lift the heavy curtain of lashes that covered his eyes. His jaw worked wildly, sucking in mouthfuls of the water surrounding him, the salt was like a sponge, pulling out the moisture on his tongue. The sea rocked him like the swaying hips of a mother in labor, pushing him closer to the surface. He kept his eyes clenched tight, too afraid to know what was closing in around him. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to stay. He was terrified of both worlds, locked up in his own prison. All he wanted was the warmth of the one he left. There was no warmth here. How could he make this bad dream disappear? He fought against his lungs, holding his breath, trying to stay below the water. A nagging in his gut begged him to stay where he was, to fight against his instincts, to stay in the water forever. It didn't matter that every cell in his body cried out for release before he drowned. On the next thrust of the sea, he broke the surface. As he came up through the surf, his eyes were wrenched open and stung by the salty waves crashing down around his horns. He opened his mouth to yell, but no words came to him. There was no language he remembered. His red, swollen eyes, rounded wide with fear. Another push from the full belly of the pregnant sea and his listless body was forced out, pushed forward by another rolling wave. He was too tired to fight, but he couldn’t stop until he wore himself out. His eyes brimmed with the sting of tears. By the time he crashed toward the shore, his body was shuddering with the cold and the effort of dying.

[Ifran]

There was a vibrancy to the chaos of Alvadas that Ifran enjoyed, but there were times when he needed to step away for perspective, to ground himself in the common reality beyond the city's walls. To spend time in the Sanity Center would be to admit weakness, but to walk along the seashore by himself, that was merely a mild case of wanderlust. These were his illusions. The average citizen would likely not notice the promise of winter in the first chill notes of autumn, but the desert creature did. He pulled his cloak closer about him as his bare feet traversed the damp sands. Sandals dangled from his fingers and one of his bronze khopeshes hung from his waist. Just as he was getting far enough away from the city that he began to think about turning back, a flash caught his eye far above in the heavens. A perfect circle appeared in a moon-limned cloud with concussive force as an object fell from the sky trailing stardust and magic, as if this celestial jumper had hitched the fabled aurora to its orbit and was pulling it down to earth. Cursing eloquently in High Arumenic, he bolted farther down the beach, eyes trained on the spot where a waterspout erupted at the object's impact. When he was close enough, he dropped his sandals, shrugged out of his cloak, and dropped his khopesh -- scabbard, belt, and all -- onto the sand and ran into the teeth of Laviku. If this was what he thought it might be, then aid was surely required. How many Ethaefal had traded the Ukala's for the sea's belly in their despairing first moments of new life? While not the best swimmer, Ifran had eight limbs to ply the waves, and he found the pale body struggling just beyond where Ifran's feet could touch ground. "Peace!" he cried, his voice a trained clarion cutting through the rushing sighs of the sea, his three right arms securing the horned one as his legs scissored through the water, his left arms dragging them back toward the shore. It was a struggle, even an Ethaefal's instinct being to struggle and clutch at a rescuer at sea, and as much energy was spent keeping him -- the body felt too muscular to be female -- from drowning Ifran as was spent getting them back to shore. But finally, exhausted, he pulled the body up beyond the reach of the licking waves and began pounding on his back to expel any water he might have swallowed into his lungs.

[Corvus]

To his horror, something snatched him out of the rocking waves of the sea, forcing him onto solid earth. Sand scoured his cheek and jaw as his face repeatedly grazed its surface. A nameless being squeezed his chest like an iron vice, forcing the water he’d swallowed out of his lungs. It stung more coming out than going in, but the stranger was relentless. It wrapped its many arms around his jellied body, forcing foreign air into his resentful lungs as it pushed him towards the brink of life. What was he doing? Why hadn’t he let him die as he was meant to? He fought to make him stop, but his body failed to obey, too weak from the struggle.

He lulled between darkness and light until the last of the water spit from his lips and the air, thickly laced with salt, rushed in, saturated his lungs, inflating them with life. The being’s mouth moved, but the sounds that it made hurt his ears; it couldn’t have been a language he was speaking, the words were too ugly.

His salt scratched eyes peeled open and his gaze flew up to the dull sky, searching for Leth, silently begging for the warmth of his embrace once more…to be done with this world that had greeted him so harshly. Did Leth know the pain of his fall? Did he care? Did he mourn his own creature as Corvus mourned his god? Leth’s unblinking gaze was cold, his words failing to reach him, tearing a new hole in his chest.

He scrambled out of the grip of the male who’d breathed life into him and eyed him with a sour expression. He should have left him to drown in the water; death would have been a gift compared to this agonizing birth. A new anger scorched him and he straightened his back, raising himself to his full height, nearly a head above the tower of male in front of him. Inwardly, his soul bled with his mistreatment. In his heated state, he wanted penance for the painful hand he’d been dealt. Since his god was the source, but failed to answer to him, he sought to take his hatred out on this repellent figure that had hastened to interfere in his fate.

His cobalt eyes narrowed to slits. He huffed in a lungful of heavy air and put all of his hatred into his glare. His cracked lips parted to speak, but he choked on the vibrations in his throat and nothing came out.

His beautiful language was gone, swallowed by his thick tongue.

Word Count441

[Ifran]

He was glad that the horned one began to breathe, because the next step was to breathe for him, and a fallen avatar would most likely react violently to the intimate exigencies of providing another person with one's lungs for a time. All the same, he didn't seem happy to have Ifran play midwife in his rebirth. Perhaps this one would have been another happy suicide. One notable Eypharian had the skeleton of such a one on display for salons and parties, which disgusted Ifran now that he had kept one from just such a fate. And the poet-prince would have agreed that Common was a language lacking in verve and beauty, would have argued that Arumenic was the flower of mortal languages, but even he in all his pardonable pride would not doubt that the celestial language was the most beautiful of all. Sages said it was the vehicle for creation. Unusually for him, Ifran was breathing heavily. This was no choreographed exercise of artistry, but a life or death exertion that was rewarded with hate and resentment. There was situational irony for example. He stepped back, almost staggered in the sand, but he caught his footing, his old grace returning. With a half bow, he spoke: "I apologize for saving your life. Feel free to walk back into the waves. I will return to the City of Illusions."

[Corvus]

Corvus cursed Leth with his swollen tongue, betting both of his horns that the moon god could hear him. The fallen Ethaefal didn’t care if anyone could understand him anymore, least of all, Leth. He was still a god after all, living without worry in the world his child had fallen from. Corvus's mouth picked the perfect time to silence him, or he would have used another curse against the one who’d saved him. It wasn’t the stranger's fault that he'd come into this miserable world belly up, but the guilt of forcing him to live through it, should have landed like a heavy sack across his shoulders. And he didn't seem to care...

He stood in front of Corvus mouthing words that scared him, more because they were starting to make sense, than because of anything he was saying. He didn’t want to revert to what he’d been. It felt like he was devolving. What was at the end of the road? First from the heavens to the ground, then to what? If he had no language to communicate with his brothers and sisters, better that he not stumble across them. They would only bring him more pain. He was better off being found by this being who carried the weight of his six arms with a gracefulness that he once could have understood. If Corvus was going to live what was left of his days here, it was better that he get them over with quickly.

He turned his naked back on Leth and looked into the blue eyes of the one who’d saved him, searching for a reason to hate him more than his god. Even in his state of confusion, he found nothing in their depths that gave away anything but his annoyance. As Corvus started to let go of his anger, his hands began to tingle from lack of blood and he realized he’d been clenching his fists, preparing for the fight that he knew now, wouldn't come. When he opened his hands, one finger at a time, then shook them out, a weight he was carrying in his body that was more than the heavy atmosphere of the new world, crumbled off his back. For the first time since he'd fallen, the tension in his muscles slowly unwound.

The male was still talking, unaware of Corvus's mental transformation, giving him the feeling the stranger liked to hear himself talk. He tossed his horns, clearing his mind and focused on the man's words, trying to ignore the harshness of each syllable. His lips moved longer than most males, but the Ethaefal still couldn't make out what he was saying. He bellowed with frustration. The speech nagged something in his brain, something that was so close to the surface but wasn't. The closer he got, the more painfully he slammed his head against the wall in it. The pain was worse than his ugly words.

“Gah!” He jumped back, startled by the thick goo of the words that his throat had thrown up. The taste was awkward on his tongue, he hated the pasty feel of it, but it couldn’t be undone. He’d spit up his first word on Mizahar and he had no idea what it was.

Word Count545

[Ifran]

The newly reborn ethaefal bellowed his rage and frustration, and Ifran felt he could empathize, even if he had exiled himself of his own volition rather than falling out of the skies on the long and painful journey from the Ukalas. The rage would gutter out like a dying candle, though, if what he knew of ethaefal were true. Soon he would walk on wobbling legs, weak as a newborn kitten. Perhaps leading him to Alvadas was not the wisest choice just then, but rather a nearer shelter was required. He walked away from the sea and the cold womb that had borne the horned one. Perhaps Alvadas was the only city in all of Mizahar where a soaking wet, naked giant of a man with horns on his head would not seem particularly remarkable, but Ifran was solving the problem he foresaw now, looking for some kind of shelter up in the rocks and scrubby trees that dared grow so close to the sea. Occasionally he glanced back to check on the unnamed man, feeling a vague sort of responsibility for him that was irregular for the Eypharian. The blood of his blood, Hasre, his brother, was in Alvadas, but he did not feel so protective of him. Aru was back in Ahnatep keeping tabs on the situation for him, but Aru could fend for himself. Blinking in the moonlight, he crawled into a shadowy indentation that did prove to be a proper sea cave. Thankfully, he had not had to look for too long or too far away from the ethaefal. Pleased with himself, he crawled out to see what state the horned one was in, and realized he could probably stoop under the low hanging entrance rather than needing to crawl. That was a blessing, too.

[Corvus]

When his graceful body turned and walked away from Corvus, the man's movements appeared so rhythmically timed that it looked more like he was performing a choreographed dance than walking along a sandy beach. The growing distance between them should have brought relief with every long stride, but instead it brought a gnawing dread that crawled across his gut. Again, he felt the sting of Leth turning his back on him and realized it might be one of many scars he’d retain from his savage birth tonight.

Wobbling into a weak stance, he steadied himself with a deep breath and fought to quiet his trembling legs until he was able to follow after him. His attempt was a clumsy one, the seemingly sold grains of sand were another illusion of this backward place. With every dragging step he forced himself to take, the earth swallowed his bare feet like quicksand, holding him tighter the harder he struggled. Moving was a painstakingly slow effort and his stranger had quickly put substantial distance between them, likely unaware that he was even chasing after him. Corvus didn't really get it either, but he wouldn’t be left behind.

From his distant point, he envied the way the man’s body moved with subtle grace, gliding over the hills and valleys of the beach with ease while he followed behind at his own slow crawl.

Thankfully, their journey was a short one. Not far from where they’d started, the man stopped. As he was still trying to play catch up, Corvus watched from a distance as the towering figure ducked into the hillside and disappeared. Where had he gone? Corvus’s legs were impossible to move any faster, so that when he finally reached where the man had gone missing, there was nothing to see but darkness inside of what appeared to be a cave. The obsidian depth of the hollow glittered like a black jewel, twinkling with calm littered through the void. It was the first thing that had reached out to him and offered comfort since he’d fallen. The darkness called to all his senses, begging to let it fold him in its inky embrace. Could it be that even in this harsh place, he could still find comfort?

A pale shape crowded the opening, pushing the darkness back around his substantial form. The stranger that was his, pulled himself free of the cave and regarded Corvus with a look he wasn’t sure how to comprehend. He looked like he wanted him to go inside, to enter the blackness himself. Was that right? How was it possible for him to know the thing he needed most, when he hadn’t recognized it yet himself? Maybe he wasn’t as alone in this place as Leth would have led him to believe.

Word Count473

[Ifran]

They stared at each other in the dim light of the traitorous moon, and then Ifran emerged fully, reaching out to take the ethaefal by the hand. He would either trust the Eypharian or not, but he was going to need shelter. The weather was mild yet, but this was not so comfortable as he imagined the Ukalas were. He placed one hand upon his chest and said solemnly: "Ifran." The Alvads didn't say it properly with their coarse Common, did not hear or reproduce the subtle nuances of his Arumenic name, but an Ethaefal might. Someday. "Ifran," he repeated, smiled faintly, and then tugged him down into the cave to drag him from one womb into another, albeit drier. All those hands warded tender flesh from the hard rock, easing his head down so he didn't ram those horns against the ceiling, easing slowly but surely deeper inside. There wasn't far to go before stopped, wanting there to still be plenty of light coming in from the cave mouth, and he pulled the newborn down into the soft sand to sit. He flung his fine blue cloak around the naked ethaefal, and sat close, arms slung around his shoulders, his back, to keep him warm. That he had followed Ifran bespoke a certain amount of intelligence and will to survive, but since they could not communicate very well yet, he remained in silence for a while as his eyes adjusted to the dimmer light, until finally he began to hum an old lullaby a nurse had sung to him, recalling the notes as he went along. As the song wound down, he began anew, but this time he sang quietly, the words in honeyed, soothing Arumenic. His voice, too, was more highly trained than that of any nursemaid, but this was no opera. All the same, the timbre of his voice resonated through their flesh, as soothing as a cat's purr. He would stay there until the Ethaefal slept, then settle him in for the night, and steal away. There would be new needs greeting the newcomer in the morning, and Ifran would provide.

[Corvus]

Sleep wasn’t something Corvus’s body had ever needed before. He couldn’t even remember what the need felt like, but the musical sounds coming from the stranger were doing something to his body that confused him. His eyes slowly drifted shut, the stranger’s face disappearing behind the thick curtain of the Ethaefal’s eye lids. With his eyes closed, his thoughts turned inward.

As the male hummed, Corvus practiced Ifran’s name on his tongue. It had a sound that made it different from the harsh words he’d said earlier. This language was lighter in his mouth and easier for his vocal cords to wrap themselves around. He found he liked the way Ifran had spoken it and tried hard to reproduce the nuances of each sound. It would take time to get it right with his swollen tongue, but he’d work on it and had no doubt he’d get it eventually. The song that Ifran was singing was a rich melody filled with the same subtly majestic nuances. It had a nice ring in his ears.

Corvus slowly let the world around him recede as he focused on the music. The walls of his mind bent, slowly letting him through; he found himself floating in the darkness inside of himself. It was a curious place, but it was the only comfortable one he’d been able to find. He knew he wasn't sleeping, but he’d found a place between being awake and being asleep where his mind could rest and the burdens of his body fall away. He took his time exploring every corner of the darkness needing the feeling of it, losing track of time. His first warning that something had changed, was the silence that greeted him.

[Paragon]

Corvus : Corvus Skill XP Reward Philosophy +1 Swimming +1 Rhetoric +1 Bodybuilding +1 Lore: The Fall, Born Again, First Words (Gah), The Common Tongue (Basic) Other: N/A Ifran : Ifran Skll XP Reward Swimming +1 Singing +1 Wilderness Survival +1 Lore: The Brave Other: N/A I'm currently helping sort out Fallacy's backlog of threads. I really enjoyed this, I think you did this momentous event justice Corvus, and Ifran played his part effortlessly - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.