Dreaming to awaken the beast within(Sairque)

[Taln]

'You moronic, eternal DEK!' screamed Inferno, saying the caste like an epithet. 'She is not human like you were. She -is- a Kelvic wind eagle. It can kill you easily if you let it!' Taln turned a deaf ear to the roiling thoughts that crowded his head. He was starting to know what was his own beliefs and what was the beast within. His eyes watched her from a bent head and lowered lashes. The man found solace in habit and the presence of someone he longed for; unrequited or no. She moved to sit gracefully, her feathers and cloak melding gently to the ground. Her strength of mind he admired, longed to have for himself. Or to be more honest, longed to have her. Sairque spoke with confidence, moved surely knowing herself with no shame or clumsiness as he did. Proud. That was the word. Sai's voice was soft and held a hint of steel in it. She did understand him! The woman bespoke the very concept he was struggling so hard with! Was it something you were simply born with? Could it be taught? Nah. She wouldn't waste her time teaching a big dumb Dek anyway! His molten gaze followed her own and he looked guiltily at the devastated landscape of shattered rocks, dead bodies of Inarta and animal, decimated trees and sludge filled mud that used to be water. "You go on about the length of time it takes to heal, but the concept holds no meaning to earth, fire, water or air. They simply continue to exist regardless of how much mortals bemoan timespans." The concept didn't seem his own, and he listened for the first time at the strange words that came out in his own voice. The peculiar moment passed and Taln continued, "Besides, how does anyone heal that? I did that yes, but who could fix it? I would rather--" '--rather forget any gnosis or Ivak and just be a Dek again..' The redhead let the sentence drop, reluctant to voice his ridiculous desires. He wasn't willing to stop the thought however. Instead, he gestured with a large hand, trying to keep the topic on the important subjects instead of her beauty. Neither subject was a comfortable one, aloud or in his head. World wide devastation at his fingertips or being rejected by the loveliest, strongest creature he knew and longed for?

[Sairque]

Silence crowded in after his voice fell away in shame and fear. The object of his newfound lust watched, waited to hear his wish, her eyes narrowed after his initial statement. But she waited on that one, letting it simmer. She leaned forward over her knees with seemingly brittle hands clasped together loosely between them. “You don’t,” the flight leader finally said with a knowing smile, addressing his final comment first. “The gods will have their hands full for a while, though. And I imagine some of them would rather you cowered beneath the weight of your actions.” Her eyes narrowed, searching his gaze for any vestige of that sporadic power, but when nothing presented itself, she rose and swayed past his huddled form. Wiry fingers brushed over a brawny shoulder, beckoning him to follow. Even with him at her back, air hummed with eagle-like scrutiny. She led them into a passage, away from the devastation. Rough hewn and cool, it ended shortly and they stepped out onto a ledge overlooked the pristine Lakes in the crater of their home. “Before you can face the consequences of your actions, you have to face yourself. Healing comes from within. If you can’t master yourself, you must at least know every aspect. You do not know where your words come from.” The woman, physically enlarged by dangerous plumage, whirled on the hulking drudge. Years of command like steel in her spine, eyes fierce enough to bite, she pushed into Taln with surprising strength, iron clenched his arm, pushing him to face her. Her crest flared with the hiss of venom, razored feathers making her as tall as he. Something wild, confident and brave sparked in mocking golden hues, and delved in Taln’s glowing ones for the source of that hair-raising power. “You go on about eternity,” she spat, snarling with derision, “but every moment you wanted action yet sat motionless passed in excruciation, didn’t it? Didn’t it? Mortals bemoan discomfort, just like you,” she hissed, not knowing what exactly she addressed, but knowing there was something wrong inside of Taln. It hissed over the back of her neck like thorns.

[Taln]

Used to literally being pushed around, he passively allowed her to handle him as she wished. Her summons to follow might as well have been screamed for all of its wordless intensity. The accusation of her words were like a slap and temper flared in him, his eyes erupting into flames. His large fists closed and clenched, barely restraining the physical urge to tear into Sairque. His body gave off immense, shimmering waves of heat, his skin literally burning to the touch. Taln/Inferno uncoiled their thoughts like the virtual beast they were. "-I- sat motionless?! You idiot mortal! How dare you speak of what you know not!" the voices merged, sinister and growling in tone and fury. A snake-like hand whipped out and grabbed her by the neck, intending to ram Sairque into the rock behind her. Ssena's mark writhed and squirmed in power, gleaning her fear as easily as child's play. "Ex-Endal, pathetic Inarta with no place or use in society! You have no value but your own ignorant pride in telling an ex dek about sitting there doing nothing with power!" The hard, stone like hand around her throat burned hotly against her windpipe, its golden skin ready to burst into Velispar form in it's towering rage. "Taln was being transformed into all aspects of djed for eons while you sobbed for a bird brain and caste that gave you status. Feeble minded little human! You're just another ignorant Inarta and nothing more. You are nothing without your rank so speak with respect to your superior! The idiot ex dek of this body is too damn stupid to complain-to you or anyone. We could easily take your pathetic and fragile life with no effort. Know your place little female and fear our true authority! Taln doesn't even need me to snap you like a twig you uppity bitch. He's merciful. I'm not." Inferno released the steel-fisted, burning hot hand with snakelike rapidity and Taln fell backwards abruptly, hitting the ground with a heavy thud. He breathed raggedly, attempting to catch his breath but he was exhausted. The Velispar wanted OUT of the frail mortal body and it took all of the red head's will to stop him. Ssena's mark had faded back to obscurity among the scars and other gnosis that looked like nothing more than dirt on skin. Flat on his back, his spine digging into the hard rock beneath him, he tried to gather his wits at what had just happened. Inferno was walled up back inside him, but he didn't know how long the blood enforced mortar would hold it back. He couldn't explain that he had a petchin Velispar in him. Words hadn't yet been invented to even try to describe it. Taln's eyes banked the coals again, dying down to a steady, glowing golden color. After several chimes he found the strength to sit up and very reluctantly, look at Sairque.

[Sairque]

Bent double and leaning against the gritty stone wall, Sai recovered her breath in choked pants. Bloodless fingers contrasted sharply against the writhing red splotch enveloping the entirety of her neck. His massive hand had wound around her throat as though it were nothing but a reed. Air sipped, painful within crushed, singed muscles. When Taln finally mustered the courage to meet her eyes, he’d catch but a glimpse of cold satisfaction. A whisper of triumph along thin, chapped lips. Perhaps even harder to detect was derision. For being so superior, Sai had not only managed to goad him into an ineffectual diatribe, his analysis of her both imprecise and inaccurate, but he’d revealed more than she’d hoped he would. His anger ruled him, he spoke without thinking. He spoke imprecisely; he displayed weakness without knowing it. Her victory hid beneath a weak, quivering sag. “What’s inside you?” she rasped, wincing and gingerly touching scorched flesh as she straightened. “You referred to yourself in the third person, Taln.” Obviously, she didn’t sound surprised. Pushing off the wall, shuffling toward the fatal drop off, she gave him a few moments to put his thoughts in order, to analyze the words that had just spewed from his thick mouth. Whatever answer he might give would be incidental. It was nothing but a label, a verbal construct. What mattered was the display, the character, the power. “What’s your relationship to it?” Plumes slipping over her shoulder, she glanced back at him. Armored feathers, small interlocking layers, had sprouted along her neck, laying in beautiful coat. When her cloak swayed open, they’d covered her arms as well. The dormant Wind Eagle upped her protection, and sharpened each quill into a subtle weapon should he physically assault her again. In case Taln couldn’t grasp the broad, exhaustive question, she gave him points to take off from. “How do you feel about it, how does it make you feel? Does it want to erase you? How did you come to have it?”

[Taln]

Taln was more than a little surprised to find Sairque's face looking so pleased after Inferno's assault. His mind was far too muzzy to know all that Inferno had said in his rage. He didn't like being taken over so completely and sternly against his will. He'd -allowed- higher castes to do as they wished, but never had he been so out of control! It was terrifying and enraging at the same time and he wasn't sure which feeling was stronger. Sai's raspy voice asked a simple query of him and shared a bit of Inferno's conversation. "A Velispar who claims he saved my life, but actually stole and takes over my body and mind whenever -he- likes. I didn't refer to myself at all-Inferno did. You know, I would never have dared to speak to you or act like that to you!" The last sentence, while as quiet as the rest of the statement, raised in intensity. His mind cleared a little more and he abruptly recalled the moment Inferno had shoved his way forward. The ex dek's hands shook that he'd actually attacked and insulted Sai with stupid arguments. Frustrated at the helpless situation his skin turned from golden to blood red crimson, shifting to scales that stayed gold on his throat and stomach. Sharp and deadly talons unsheathed and Taln's form was no longer human. A long sharp tail lashed back and forth in irritation and he growled his anger. Suddenly Sai looked a lot smaller and he bumped his scaly head on the roof of the cavern! The Inarta wanted desperately to get back some semblance of normalcy, but things just got more strange and out of control. "I didn't ask for this! I don't -want- it! I want to be a Dek again! This isn't me! What animal have I become?!" snarled the Velispar in Ancient Tongue. The snarling was no conversational help and it took a few chimes for him to recognize that he'd made no sense to the auburn haired Inarta. He raced after his thoughts and got hold of the reins, finally managing some control. The voice that came out had a strong growl to it, sounding strangely hostile, but still discernible as Nari. "This -thing- is what is in me when I look like me. It's always here, it just doesn't always show. I am not Dek, nor human. I'm an animal when I let that beast Inferno take even an inch. I have no status, control, home, discipline or even a speck of sanity." Shimmering heat came off of the Velispar body in waves, singeing the ground beneath its claws. It had a strange reptilian scent and a forked red tongue that flickered in and out just once, testing the air. It smelled of Sairque's skin and hair and that mysteriously unique scent of woman. Taln's pupils dilated to pinpoints as he watched her feathers array themselves defensively. He knew that in this form, nothing had ever come close to even making him uncomfortable, much less hurt him. Her display while deadly to a mortal creature, was more beautiful to Taln than it was intended. Sai's three quick questions were met with a blink of complete incomprehension. Feelings? Did this ex Endal ask -him- what he -felt-? Seriously? In dog-like fashion, he cocked his massive dragon styled head to the side in silent question and just looked at her. Endals didn't ask Deks how they feel! What kind of nonsense was this? He snorted and just looked at Sairque with large, slit pupiled glowing eyes, truly not knowing how to answer questions like that.

[Sairque]

Taln’s words might have been more comforting had he not then immediately transformed into a giant scaled worm with claws as long as her forearm and teeth as sharp as her broad heads. His scaled, sleek muscle shifted too quickly for the eye to track, size alone would have been warning enough. Grumbling growls of incoherency didn’t help his case. Sai’s heels hovered over the precipice, weight shifted over the balls of her feet and legs flexed in preparation of making a leap for it. Fluttering, the cloak’s hem covered such mitigating measures. Fear of size, by necessity, didn’t exist within Eagle Riders, but the whole package made for an intimidating opponent. As he fell into silence, she stared with those cold, knowing eyes. One could fairly watch her rearranging the subtle pieces of their encounter into something sharp and dangerous. He filled the passageway back to destruction. It raged behind him, din sluggishly billowing through the tight rock confines. Before him, stark against expansive sky and shimmering lakes so far below, his companion waited. She glanced at stones charring at his feet, at the glint of teeth given when his tongue snaked out, and then returned her stalwart gaze back to his eyes. His confused and blank stare earned the faintest of twitches in one arch eyebrow. “Return to your mortal form.” Command drifted over her voice like fluttering silk. Taln’s extreme sensitivity to it required little more. “Inferno,” she tasted the name, it suited her purposes, “likes his power. And right now you’re feeding it. You’re accepting his control. If you reject him, you must reject all of him. At this point you can’t pick and choose.” Now her head cocked to the side, watching him struggle with this. “You are right about one thing, you’re no longer a Dek. But you are still Taln. Taln, ambitious enough to brave young Rista and ornery old Valterrrik.” Rista had been a particular favorite of hers, and an affectionate smile softened her features for a single flicker. “Your identity is your own, no matter how many voices you have rolling around your head. No matter what social constructs you transcend.” Boy, she thought with bemusement, weren’t they just two eggs in an aerie.

[Taln]

Damn Inferno! Taln hated the Velispar's mind, but this -form- was so infinitely comforting and safe feeling he couldn't help but welcome it when this happened. The strength, solidarity and untouchable strength and heat felt amazing! Sairque's calm, quiet command had Taln changed to human on hands and knees in the blink of an eye. He'd been conditioned to obey instantly and without question. The ex-Dek knew that as long as he lived, that unique commanding authoritative tone would always inspire immediate obedience. The worst part was Taln had no idea how he changed from one form to another! Since twenty seasons old, he'd been trained incessantly to recognize and obey that tone, pitch, sound of ultimate command that brooked no argument. If pressed, there was no way to explain it. Someone could try to order him and he might laugh in their face if it didn't have that total unquestionable authority behind it. The person ordering, must truly believe that Taln would do as he was told without doubt. A harsh scream wouldn't invoke it nor nagging and whining. "When I'm frazzled, that's when Inferno usually takes over and he's got such a big ego that certain tones make him want to show his power. He covets it highly." Sai had that leadership quality that always lead to instant acquiescence and no forethought. Which, after rising to his normal Inarta feet, it did make him think. She'd never ordered anyone about unfairly, nor scolded without due cause. Wise thoughts and words were immediately respected and maybe deep down, Taln recognized its sincerity. Rista! It hurt to remember the black eyed Yasi. She'd been like a little sister to him and there was a part of him that would always miss her. Valterrrik he could very well do without, the cantankerous old man. Taln quickly squelched the ungrateful thought, for his linguistic teachings were invaluable. "When I'm in Velispar form Endal Sairque--its' like being even more than an Endal! I'm never uncomfortable, I eat once in four ten days and nothing has yet to get through the scales. I'm ... impervious in that shape-untouchable." He didn't want to sound like he was bragging, he just wanted to show how physically amazing it felt to be free from harm. Strong and unafraid. Taln's molten eyes watched Sai's graceful form and he commented before thinking-yet another side effect so soon after changing. "And yet you look like half kelvic right now. Which one is the real you?"