29th of Summer, 513 AV
Bodies writhing to the basal beats, sweat kissed and trembling, grinding against one another as a way of flirting with a more fundamental desire the Inarta were known to possess in droves. A tamed debauchery that gave their little home purpose beyond just survival, and made the rigors of their existence seem more trivial…at least for the time being. In short, it was no place for an Endal like Raif to be.
He’d come to the Inclement Weather at the behest of one who sought to save him, a pressing need to escape from the aerie if just for a night. Thoughts concerning only the colony’s survival could break a man in time, corrode his thoughts and drip venom into weakened veins--no matter how seriously he may have taken himself. So, pushed and shoved down through labyrinthine warrens into the belly of their granite home, Raif now found himself amid a sea of his kin, tugged at the wrist by a woman who cared for him enough to at least try to get through to him.
It wouldn’t work. It never worked.
Brought to a smaller alcove where a group of friends lay huddled conspiratorially together around a small table, Raif’s presence was greeted with a mixture of both incredulousness and dread. You couldn’t live in a place like Wind Reach without having some form of a reputation as an Endal, and he had done so little to sew any sense of compassion into his. It came as no surprise, then, when a life-depriving silence filled the mouths of those gathered around.
“This is Ireri, Lelir, Sanica, and Rilus,” the crimson haired woman who had dragged him here chirped over the din, offering a smile that could melt even the hardest of hearts.
But Raif could sense that those named didn’t want to greet him almost as much as he held no interest in meeting them. It left them all with curt, accosting nods and nothing more, eyes quickly cast in different directions as if trying to escape the discomfort of the situation. But such things could not so easily be diffused. At least not by conventional means…
Suddenly she was offering him something in the flat of her palm she‘d plucked off the center of the table. A sack of some sort whose contents lacked any definable hue. ”What is it?” he asked, already eying the small container with a hint of suspicion as he fed it into his grasp for closer examination. It hardly left an impression against his fingertips, appearing so delicate he felt applying just an ounce of pressure might destroy the whole thing.
“Just inhale it. It will make you feel better, I promise.” Her smile was soft, if not the least bit mischievous in its delivery.
”Drugs?” His face grew horror stricken, levying the gift to the hand that had offered it to him in the first place. “Absolutely not. You can’t…”
“Lighten up, dek licker!” Grabbing both wrist and hand, she gently pushed back against his insistence. “You Endal and your stiff upper lips. Always defying death, but when it comes to a little vapor, you squirm in your knickers.”
Words enough to make him regret the curtain of self assurance he draped consciously over himself, staring at the small aquatic sac with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. But when push came to shove, Raif was not one to concede to signs of weakness. A character flaw that seemed to punish him more than serve.
Bringing it up to his teeth, and eying the girl with a fiery brilliance reflected in his eye, the Endal sliced its thin skin beneath the edge of his right canine and inhaled the earthy tang of its contents down his throat.
Instantly a wave of euphoria splashed over him, resonating from his forehead and sauntering across his scalp like pixie fingers raking tangles of hair. It cast his eyelids aflutter and sunk irises back into their sockets, momentarily disengaging him from reality and causing his sense of balance to slip. Feeling a firm hand along his upper arm to support him, Raif was able to anchor himself long enough that he soon retrieved each dispossessed faculty, eyes turning once again to the light. Something…Everything…was different.
A natural desire to explore his body filled him, gaze cast to his widening palms in what felt like the very first time he’d ever done so. Delighting in the manner in which his fingertips twitched and the life he came to a sterling realization that he possessed, Raif felt himself slipping towards the dance floor and away from those who now fostered beguiled expressions at the table.
The Endal felt an uncanny desire to feel the pulse of life spread fiercely within him.
