Completed [The Bronze Woods] A Due Promise (Razkar)

[Fubuki Kouri]

Fubuki Kouri "Eh...?" Kouri went rather annoyed when Razkar patted away her hand with his own. The air around them seemed to crackle as if it was in the process of being frozen. She smirked and the hand stuck like a glue when Razkar patted it, dry ice emitting from her touch. "He... hehehehe~" She let it the freezing situation sink in to his head first before releasing it "So... so so so~♪ What are you going to get for me~♪ I wonder~♪ I wonder~♪" Kouri began slowly, cutely, circling Razkar even as Ama's face began to get more and more worried. "Not give ax." She frowned at that and puffed up her cheeks. Ama's face began to show a tinge of panic. "Told you before. Gift from mother. Only give when die." A happy grin plastered itself on the lethal ghost's face, while Ama was ready to launch into "panic mode" as if Fear, Fuck.everything.and.run. The air crackled and crackled, Razkar could feel that the Blizzard of Taldera began to emanate from the little girl in front of him "Ah okay~ I think I can arrange tha-" "But... would Fubuki still like... pretty dagger...?" "Oh? Pretty dagger? Aaaaaah~ ahahahaha~♪! Okay!" Her voice suddenly went back to cheerful, a true cheerfulness, not murderously cheerful. She gave a light playful punch on Razkar's stomach, but it would feel like a normal punch from an Akalak to him. Ama gave a huge silent sigh in her mind as she sat down and rubbed her forehead, Razkar almost doomed them both to Dira. "Alright! I want a pretty pretty cute dagger, please~♪!" Suddenly, a tendril launched itself from her back, whizzed pass Ama's hair, and grabbed one of her cold iron daggers. It then launched back and Kouri held out her hand, catching the dagger perfectly "So! Make this blue one even more pretty, please~♪" Ama put both of her hands to cover her face, muttering her frustration You are going to be the death of me... both of you....

[Razkar]

"So! Make this blue one even more pretty, please~♪"

Razkar scowled as he rubbed his sore chest; the girl really needed to start pulling her punches. Even Turak's little love taps weren't as bruising as that. Once he was done straightening back up he took the dagger, regarding it critically... and frowning.

"Good blade..." he mumbled, only half to her as he thought carefully about his next step "... but hard to make Power of Bones for thing. Have to male bone right, put bone on handle..."

Without waiting for her response, Razkar's head swiveled to the dead Alpha, striding over and crouching by the half-destroyed skull. Ama sniffed her disdain as the Myrian's bare fingers picked through blood and brain matter as if he was going through a plate of leftovers, until...

"Yes... Yes, I think so..."

It was no more than a fragment, but the Fates seemed to have intervened in Razkar's favor. It would only have mattered for this one specific ritual, this strange smashing of the skull, but was that not where the Fates were most evident? In those esoteric details...

Razkar held up the front of the head, still strewn with gore and battered flesh. Black blood oozed down his arm as he studied it. The lower jaw was still attached, the nose, the eye holes were empty, bleeding holes... and there was was a hole just above them, in the forehead. The Myrian scowled at it.

"Once we get off flesh, muscle," he pointed out little areas that would be problematic, "Bone will be clean... can put dagger through hole here, see? Once do that, can make firm. Keep on dagger... then work Power of Bones..."

He stood up with the skull and dagger in either hand, then looked around at the corpses littering it feet for yards around.

"But for clean, need fire, and since Demons need burn anyway..."

Though in human form, Ama was still as adept at skulking and stalking as any wolf. She sidled up to him before he realized it, urgent, worried voice audible to just the two of them.

"Myrian, have you lost your senses?! I know some of this bone magic you refer to! You would give such a boon to her?"

He turned to her and fixed an unblinking and challenging gaze upon her own pained visage. "You have other idea?"

"Razkar, there must be another way-"

"Well, there is not other. Not make necklace for ghost, or stud, or pierce. She want dagger worked, so I work dagger-" he patted his trophies, the two faintly glowing swords slung at his belt "-keep my prize, give her prize, and we both go without her kill us."

"Razkar, she wouldn't-"

"Yes, she would, and you know, now stop. Start getting body." The Myrian led by example and bent down to grab the ankles of the nearest Yukman, deciding to make the rest of the Alpha's corpse the base of their conflaguration. "Fubuki?! Use... arms, or what you call them! Start pile bodies here!"

He turned back to Ama, still worried and wringing her hands. He sighed and shook his head, icy resolve thawing enough to pat her shoulder.

"I know. Is like... giving sword to tiger. But must be done..."

[Fubuki Kouri]

Fubuki Kouri "Ehehe~♪ Hehehe~♪ Ohohoho~♪" Kouri giggled without any visible reason, but it was most likely her excitement of finally "convincing" Razkar to craft her promised "bone" dagger. She just swayed her body side to side, watching Razkar picking through her "handiwork", the mutilated Alpha Yukman of course. "Hmhmhm~♪" Kouri sat down on the ground, hugged her knees, and tilted her head from side to side, like a little girl watching a puppet show. Ama just couldn't help but think that at times like this, the ghost acted like a true little girl for once. Her experiences with Kouri had taught her that when you combine child-like morality with immense power you get... someone who saw the whole world as a big game and the scary thing was she was actually capable of "playing" the pieces to her liking. The particular tiger who killed Kouri must be proud right now... or not, depending on one's perspective. "Ehehe~♪" Kouri didn't pay anymore attention to the thinking Myrian and decided to have fun with Ama instead while she waited... she vanished from her location and suddenly appeared on Ama's back, hugging the Kelvic from behind "Piggyback~♪". She controlled her materialized state's touch so Ama would just feel a cool breeze was hugging her from behind. "Wha-?!" The Kelvic almost jumped up in surprise, but quickly controlled herself and just sighed motherly, albeit a bit forced. "Ahaha, d-dear... maybe you should learn more about... uhm... self-control..." The Kelvic tried to educate the ghost, surely if she was a true little girl, she would listen... right? "Eh? Why~?" It was a simple question from a child-like mind, it was not sarcastic or held any hidden meanings. "Well... you are an older sister and you have a maid right? Basically, you're the head of your family... so, you need to be more mature, dear..." Ama thought even Kouri would understand this. "Oh... hmmm~♪ You're right! Ehehehe~ I'll be more mature! I will!" "......" The thought that the ghost girl didn't fully understand what the kelvic meant crossed her mind, Ama bet Kouri just said 'yes' without knowing on how to be "mature". She just kept silent and let the ghost rubbed her cheeks on her shoulder, perhaps in the future, she could change her... everybody deserved a second chance, except Rhysol's cronies. "But for clean, need fire, and since Demons need burn anyway..." Something suddenly clicked within the kelvic's mind, was Razkar really serious on enchanting Kouri's dagger? She was deadly enough with it and she definitely wasn't responsible enough for the power she wielded, giving her an enchanted dagger was like giving a psychopathic child with even more power. "I... need to talk to Razkar, dear. Can you get off me for a moment?" "Oh! Okay~" Surprisingly enough, Kouri was obedient, as long as her wishes were adhered that is. She got off Ama's back by dropping to the ground and lay on it, swinging her arms and legs akin to like when one was creating a "snow angel". Kouri didn't pay any attention to Ama's worried whispers with Razkar, she was thinking on how "cool" she would look waving around her new dagger, slicing, dicing, stabbing, just doing good by killing evil people! "Fubuki?! Use... arms, or what you call them! Start pile bodies here!" "Eh?" Only when her name was called did she shifted to a sitting position. She tilted her head at the strange command, maybe it was connected to the ritual Razkar was going to do. Well, there was no reason for her not to help. Kouri waved and nodded at Razkar "Okay~" Tendrils then jutted out from her back, swiveling to mutilated Yukmen's corpses and started dragging the pieces to the aforementioned location, she didn't lift the pieces as dragging them requires less energy. Doing all that while not moving from her sitting position.

[Razkar]

Once the pile was two Razkar's height, he knew their pyre was ready. Every Yukman in the horde had been found and Razkar had methodically decapitated each corpse before those shimmering tentacles of Fubuki's threw them onto the flames.

Ama worked diligently on their fire, sniffing down flint from the gods knew where in the clearing, having a smoking pile of kindling ready by the time the Alpha's carcass was hurled onto the very peak.

The Myrian wiped his blade and nodded to the Kelvic.

"Do it."

She did, and usually he would have watched, but this time he had other tasks commanding his mind. He sat cross-legged in front of the pile, heedless as Ama carefully brushed the burning tip of her torch against the outside of the pile, smoke pouring off the charred flesh as the flame caught.

He studied the ruined skull and shook his head. Stupid, short-sighted child... but then again, did she know he would use the skull for this reason? No, he suggested it, so it was his problem, not hers.

Razkar sighed... and tossed the skull into the growing flames. Then he waited.

The flames spread like a live thing, hungry and without restraint as long as it had sustenance. The bottom corpses made fine kindling, half-formed bodies oddly more flammable than the squishy, liquid corpses of humans. Dirty flesh melted from flesh, muscle and fat dripped off gleaming bone like burnt rubber... and Razkar watched, eyes fixed on one point.

The skull. He watched skin and hair and flesh and everything else incinerated like he was watching a fat man eat a chicken, until only the bone was left. Charred and blackened, none of the brilliant whiteness one expected... but clean of the filth that could rot and stink. He narrowed his eyes against the glare and heat and picked at the skull with his ax until it rolled out and stopped at his feet.

The Myrian waited for it to cool, until the smoke and steam ceased trailing from the bald pate, and then got to work.

He jiggled and thrust and ground the dagger through the gap behind the jaw and then through the hole in the forehead, smelling the stinking remains of brain matter around his fingers. Once the dagger was secure, he started chipping away at the back of the skull with his ax, knocking away splinters, little chunks and fragments.

Hard to get a hand in there. Better to take off the back... tie the dagger firm... leave the jaw, nose, eyes... and have them as a hand guard.

Then, a full bell later (for the work was painstaking and brooked no room for error), the ghost and the Kelvic heard the Myrian begin to speak. It was his own tongue, guttural and harsh, full of clicks and growls that were more animal than sentient to their ears. But accompanying the low, fervent words was a slow, steady scraping...

"Ooo'karu vatash Myri... Ooo'karu vatash Myri... Ooo'karu vatash Myri... Ooo'karu vatash Myri..."

Razkar used his file; the one he sharpened his teeth with. The keen sharp edge was a good enough carving tool for this enterprise, and as he held the warm skull with one hand, he began to carve a circle into the bone above the left eye. Long, tedious, work. Too hard and you'd shatter the bone; too light and you'd barely make an indent. He worked as much by feel as by sight, noticing the scrapes deepening, taking it slow and steady until there was a circle maybe two inches wide above the eye.

Then he began on the space above the right eyes, and all the while his voice droned, on and on, a litany and a prayer.

"Glory to Myri... Glory to Myri... Glory to Myri... Glory to Myri..."

Smoke and scraps of burning flesh swept around the sitting figure, only adding to his savage appearance. The sun above them was blotted out by the pyre, artificial night falling across the clearing, giving strength and length to shadows and silencing the sounds of Caiyha that Ama so loved.

Razkar hardly noticed; if he did, he would probably had thought it appropriate.

We are dragging back that which has passed. We are binding strength that is pure and unhindered by flesh. We tinker, we interfere... and we are confident in doing so...

A tickling on his shoulder. Indistinct, almost like an insect, but when Razkar felt its icy, numbing touch, he knew what it was-

-and slapped away the impatient tentacle without looking up.

"Not now, girl!" He snapped, angry his protective litany was interrupted. "Know you want thing done, but cannot make this fast. Power of Bones takes time. Takes... mind, focused on thing."

The shade floated down to his side, already with her legs crossed, gravity and physics meaning little to a being that had left its earthly bonds behind long ago. Curiosity glittered in her eyes, along with all the bloody things that danced in them. Flicking her a glance, Razkar decided Fubuki was much like the conflagration before them: elemental, all-consuming, and while she could be controlled and fashioned, it was all an illusion.

Fire is like a tiger in a cage; all it does is wait to be released, and then remember what its true nature is.

"What do you want Power of Bones to do?" He said eventually, finishing the second circle, second set of eyes now above the dead sockets in the Alpha's skull. "Remember: thing is not exact. Not perfect. But what you want power to do, I try and make skull do. So... what you want from this...?"

[Fubuki Kouri]

Fubuki Kouri "Wooooah~♪" Kouri watched in awe at the huge bonfire set up by Razkar and Ama. She floated closer to it and just let the flicker of orange and red reflected in her crimson eyes. "Na?!" She almost hissed in protest when Razkar threw the precious Alpha skull to the bonfire, if all of the Yukmen were burned then how could he make her pretty dagger? Assuming that Razkar knew what he was doing, Kouri just growled in annoyance and continued to watch the fire. It was a testament that she didn't pay any attention when Razkar said about cleaning the flesh and muscles from the skull first before attempting to do the ritual. After a bell, Kouri was beginning to get bored, she lay prone on the ground and started to thump it with her hands and feet out of sheer boredom "Is it done yeeet?" She lifted her head and saw Razkar was mumbling... something, something she obviously didn't understand "I wonder if Vani sounded like that to outsiders..." She thought out loud in Vani. Nah, it definitely wasn't, people said that Vani sounded beautiful and full of melody even to people who didn't understand them, very different from Razkar's gruff, guttural native language. Ama just saw down on the ground, warily watching the Myrian, contemplating if there was any way to undo this... act. She sighed, she knew that this was the price of making a deal with the devil, she was the one who asked Kouri for her help, not the other way around. She just hoped that Priskil would forgive her for deliberately allowing this. "Eeeen... aaaan..." Boredom caught up to her and Kouri's childish mind couldn't handle it. She suddenly vanished from her position and appeared next to Razkar in a crossed-leg sitting position, her small form sitting on the ground. She launched a small tendril to poke at his shoulder "Done yet~? Done yeeet? Un... meanie..." She grumbled and puffed up her cheeks when Razkar slapped away the tip of her tendril. She was about to launch more tickling tentacles to hurry him, that's when the Warrior spoke to her... "What do you want Power of Bones to do?" "Oh!" Her boredom was washed away, her eyes figuratively shone. She let her imagination flowed, she had zero experience in Malediction so she didn't knew the boundaries and how it exactly worked, all she knew was she wanted her dagger to be like Razkar's hand ax. "Uhm... eh... aha! I want my dagger to be strong! Like your ax! Hehe~ And glow a bit too~" She didn't know if it was absurd or not, but Kouri thought Razkar could try to make that happen.

[Razkar]

"Oh! Uhm... eh... aha! I want my dagger to be strong! Like your ax! Hehe~ And glow a bit too~"

Razkar cocked a satirical eyebrow at the ghosts exuberant words, then reminded himself she had never seen the Power of Bones at work. She didn't know that there wasn't much in the way of showiness or wondrous illumination to it, like many other arts of the wyrd. It was just... power.

And that didn't need to glow; it just needed to be properly harnessed.

"Not make glow..." He frowned minutely and shrugged. "Not think, anyway... but can make power in blade. Make strength of Earth Demon in blade."

He nodded slowly, considering the words, the tone... so many simple things that mattered so much. The Power of Bones was an elemental craft by its very nature, for the djed of souls recoiled from being bound to forms not of their own. They wished to rest, or move on, and with an Earth Demon...

Gods knows where they go. Or if they go.

Razkar inhaled deeply, face set and determined... his mind made up. He'd said that he would do a thing, and with Fubuki oh-so-subtly threatening him all the while, he didn't have a choice. But he knew the Yukman was not a thinking creature as he knew it, as humans, Myrians or even Zith were. It was a demon, a monster, an animal... and that he could bind.

"Stay away and not make noise." He said bluntly, in no mood for Fubuki's stupid games or childish impatience. But he saw her bristle and softened his tone a little, teacher to student. "Need quiet when work djed. Need peace and to focus mind. So... please... quiet..."

She was, amazingly enough, and Razkar sat down to his work. For long chimes he did nothing, sitting cross legged with the skull-and-dagger combination in his lap, one hand under it, file in another. The words... they were what mattered. The circles, they were just the context of the ritual, the shackles around the wrist.

But the words, they were the chains, and getting even a letter wrong would reverse everything. Some small part of Razkar's mind shrugged, pointing out it would be Fubuki that would suffer for that, not him, so why worry?

Not the point. You said you would do a thing, and you must. Therefore, do it right.

Under the eyes of ghost and Kelvic, before the smoking pyre that stretched smoking fingers to the sky, Razkar's hand began to move, as did his lips. A familiar, repetitive, meditative litany as his mind found the words.

Such a strange thing. You hunt for them, and believe them lost... then you find the first couple, and they... flow...

The file scratched gently on the stone as he began to carve the words within the first circle, Myrian runes, a condensed language and harsh, aggressive even to the eyes.

Blight On Realm
Of Goddess Green
Head Of Horde
That Would Burn Woods Clean

After half a bell or more, Razkar's stiff fingers ceased and he set down the file, shaking the numbness and cramp out of them, hissing through clenched teeth as he did. Goddess, but the time this took... and he really should have made the circles bigger. Those dozen runes were legible, certainly, but next time, he'd give himself more to work with.

A tiny, soft snort and an even smaller smile. Next time. You're getting more comfortable with this. Good. But you're not finished yet...

He moved on to the next circle and flexed his fingers around the file. A dozen characters... yes... they would fit. His lips began to move again, and that same, flinty scratching rattled gently around the clearing, mostly drowned by the crackling, roaring pyre.

Slain By Shade
Now Soul Bound
Strength In Steel
Fury Her Power

There was a sigh and the tanned, taut body seemed to slump into the dead leaves. Fubuki watched as the Myrian set the dagger to one side, over-sized skull hand guard covering half the handle, characters stark but needing to be starker on the charred skull. He cracked his neck from side to side, muttering in his own tongue... and his eyes flickered to the ash collecting at the edge of the fire.

It'll do.

Razkar shuffled closer and dipped the end of the file into the pile of burnt flesh and bone like another man would a quill in an inkwell. Which was an apt metaphor, since the carvings of the Power of Bones were meant to be filled with ink or, ideally, blood. But he didn't have the former and she most certainly did not possess the latter. So... one makes do.

Another half bell went by, and this time there was no sound from Razkar save the steadfast scraping of charcoal into the tiny cracks made by his file. By the time he was done, the runes were a deep and eye-catching black against the skull. He held up his work, gently blowing off the excess charcoal... and he nodded.

He didn't smile. Not yet. The runes, the circle, the charcoal... they were still, when all was said and done, just the basis of the ritual. The true decider of it was yet to come, and solely in Fubuki's hands.

"Is nearly finished." He said, getting to his feet and walking to the shade, offering the dagger. "But before can finish, need... something of you... on circles." The Myrian frowned, uncertain of how to phrase his demands. "Like blood, but you... ah..."

"Soulmist."

He turned as Ama spoke, glaring sullenly at him.

"She doesn't have blood, of course, but she does have Soulmist. It is-"

"One of layers of djed," Razkar finished, remembering the pages of the Flux book he was learning. He nodded this thanks. "And... that will work?"

"It should. It better." He snorted and shrugged. "It's all she has."

"My thank-"

"Don't!" The Kelvic snapped at him, more wolf on two legs than she was in four at the moment, eyes flashing and Razkar would swear he saw a flash of yellow in them. "If I have to be party to this, I'll see it done right, and minimize the chance of you unleashing something beyond your or her control in my Woods."

Razkar nodded and turned from her, not wanting to draw the Kelvic into an argument... and surprising himself at how much remorse he felt. He did not want to do this ritual here, even if it was before the corpses of these monsters. This was the domain of the Green Goddess, and it was meant to be kept... clean. Dragging a soul, even that of a mindless beast, back to its bones was unnatural. That was not the way of Caiyha.

Finish it quickly, then. So you can go home.

The Myrian turned back to the ghost and spoke slowly, gesturing with his hands and ensuring he got every word right.

"For final ritual, you need to do. Need to put one drop of soulmist-" he held up a finger "-on here-" he pointed to first one Malediction circle, then the other "-and here. Then you must hold dagger. This is you blade, so power of bones will be on you. Djed of Earth Demon will come back in bone, and you must defeat."

Razkar tilted his head, emphasizing his stare and the seriousness therein.

"This is not enemy can kill with tentacles or blade, girl. This will be fight in you own head, in you soul. If cannot win that, do not take dagger. If cannot win, djed of Earth Demon will take you djed and take you both to Next World... and that is if we lucky."

But Razkar still offered the blade and the skull fixed to it. She wanted a blade with the Power of Bones on it? Fine. They she would have the risks, too.

"Is your choice, girl."

[Fubuki Kouri]

"Eh? Not shiny? Uuun..." Kouri flopped down to the ground, disappointed. She was actually more concerned with the "flashiness" than actual useful power. She started to lowly grumble with her high-pitched voice, thinking that Razkar might actually be toying with her. She hugged her knees and sat down beside him, hissing sound was heard as she materialized herself then killed the grasses beneath her form, replenishing her soulmist. That was the equivalent of "snacking" for the ghost girl. "Stay away and not make noise." "Eh.. eeen... why~?" "Need quiet when work djed. Need peace and to focus mind. So... please... quiet..." "Oh! I see~ Okay... ehehe~" Kouri's growing lethal childish anger died down when Razkar softened his tone. It was like handling a naughty little girl, only that ordinary little girls would throw a tantrum... this one would throw serrated tendrils. To relieve her boredom, Kouri just opted to curl up on the ground, her very long hair moved magically by itself and covered her body like a blanket. She then slowly closed her eyes and deliberately drifted into a rather deep sleep. ======================= "Un..." After some time, Kouri's crimson eyes flickered open her eyes to find Razkar facing her, her modified cold iron dagger on his hand. She woke up because she heard Ama shouting about something... she didn't quite get it and frankly, she didn't care, her mind was occupied by the pretty dagger. Her hair moved away and she shifted into a standing position, examining the now bone-handled dagger. "Oh... oh! Is it done? Is it done? Yaaay! Ahahahaha!" Kouri almost grabbed the dagger with her small right hand because Razkar stopped her and told her how to properly take it. "S-soulmist? Okay..." She was rather hesitant, putting a soulmist meaning that she had to literally cut a piece of herself into the circle, but backing down now meant that throwing away Razkar's hardwork. A little pain was nothing compared to it. Kouri extended her right hand put her index finger above the first malediction circle and a small serrated tendril jutted out from her palm then cut the tip of her index finger. "Ah... uuh.." She moaned in pain and gritted her teeth. A drop of her soulmist in the form of gel went from her finger to the circle, Razkar could feel the immense power behind the little girl's deceptively waif-looking body. She did the same with the second circle. "This better work... if not... if not... then..." Her barely audible whispers echoed in the area and Ama felt the hair at the back of her neck stood up, the whispers sounded like the ghost was all over them instead of being there. Razkar then give the ghost a warning, warning about the imminent mind battle she would endure should she decided to gain the Power of Bones. Kouri hesitated for a bit... "Is your choice, girl." ...then she focused the soulmist on her right palm and grasped the bone-handled dagger. "!?" As soon as she did that, her crimson eyes opened as wide as it could be and her hair literally lashed out as she felt an alien presence entered her mind, like something was trying to possess her. Images of her life experiences flashed before her, combined with what seemed to be the memories of the Yukman Alpha, with him facing Razkar and finally sawed to death by the ghost. "Ki... kiiii... heeeh... ha... ha... he..." Whispers violently haunted the location, defeating the crackling sound of the bonfire. "Kah... ah... haaaa... he... uuh..." Kouri hissed like a Dhani or very much like an aroused person trying to hold back her outburst. Her body shimmered like a mirage and waves of chilling cold air surged from her body, getting powerful with each surge. "MYRIAN!! Gah!" Ama couldn't take this anymore, she immediately ran to Razkar and pulled his hand to gain the both of them some... no, a lot of distance from the shaking ghost girl. "I told you! You shouldn't have done that! I'm afraid that... we have unleashed something more dangerous than the Yukman horde... Priskil, please tell me I'm wrong..." Ama's reddish brown eyes looked over to the ghost who looked like a prisoner being tortured... mentally. "Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" Kouri's back arched like a bow and she screamed to the sky, sending high-pitched loud voice that brought pain to Ama's eardrums even from far away. "Heeee... AAAAAAARRRGHHHH!!!" She screamed again and again... until her voice faltered and she flopped down to the ground, still holding the dagger, seemingly unconscious, soft icy breaths hissed from her slightly opened mouth. "Myrian...." For once, Ama didn't know on what to do next. She wanted to get out of here, but she also wanted approach the little girl, to see that if she's alright. Her not being alright could result in an even more detached phantom... more than she usually was. Suddenly, Kouri's eyes shot open, whispers echoed from her form, and she shifted to a standing position. "Ha... ha... I... mama... papa.. why... why..." She suddenly mumbled in Vani and her expression was that of a truly scared and broken little girl. The flash of memories when she grasped the maledicted dagger was taking its toll on her mind. A bloody tear fell from her right eye. Her childish mind returned to what it was when she first arrived at Syliras, a confused ghost girl... but unlike that time, she was utterly and immensely lethal. "Ku... Razkar... he lived there..." She suddenly faced both Ama and Raz then launched herself to them. Ama braced herself for a seemingly hopeless fight, but found herself agape when the ghost girl glomped the Myrian and cried on his chest. For some reason, Kouri managed to control the degree of her touch to acceptable "frostness". "Y-you were there! You lived there, right? S-so! Why didn't you save me? Why? Mama and Papa wouldn't have died if you come.. so..." She tilted her head and looked at the Myrian with her a desperate look in her large Vantha eyes, for a split second, they seemed to turn blue like how she used to look "Why?" OOCI think this should be my last post for the thread, Raz. Kouri would gather her daggers, put it to her tree, and follow you wherever you may go until nightfall.

[Razkar]

"Goddess-!"

Her tiny fingers had barely curled around the dagger and the shocked word had just left his lips before an icy blast that seemed straight from Wind Reach blew the Myrian clear off his feet. The world blurred around him, the sole constant being the agonized screaming-

No. Screams. Plural.

"What...?"

A nightmare given un-flesh unfolded before his eyes. Whispers and hissing, screams and roars in different voices, a battle of noise between one, two, five, a dozen voices that were shattering and reforming the tiny, trembling figure in front of him. Razkar's body shrunk away as a child would from a vision of hell, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

He had... miscalculated. Forgotten one important fact about the Yukmen.

Not just one mind. All in the horde. Every mine, every memory... every life they took and hateful malevolence that slathered through their minds... all fifty of them... the Alpha knew and felt them all.

Now she does.

"... no..."

"MYRIAN!!"

Something tugged at him, strong despite the thing limbs and Razkar couldn't tear his eyes away from Fubuki. Her hair seemed to... expand, contract, explode outwards and then wish inward like it was water racing down a drain-

-then she screamed again, writhing, eyes flashing, that horrible symphony of voices-

"I told you! You shouldn't have done that! I'm afraid that... we have unleashed something more dangerous than the Yukman horde... Priskil, please tell me I'm wrong..."

Razkar didn't know this "Priskil" from a scrawling in an outhouse, but his body sure as all hells knew it had to get away from... whatever that was below them. Scrambling on his hands and knees first, he let himself get dragged by the frightened Kelvic, in no mood to argue with her. Some ember told him to turn, that it was a little girl back there suffering because of his mistake-

-he quashed it with an ocean of self-preservation when a final shattering scream sent every animal for a mile around screeching and howling for a safe place to hide.

"Myrian..."

Razkar stopped at the edge of the clearing where they'd come, looking at the mournful Kelvic. The screaming... it had stopped, and when he looked past her there was... a little girl in the clearing. There was none of the casual malevolence or amoral sadism that always made Fubuki so repugnant to him. Now her face was... soft. Frightened. Was she remembering? Was her sould simply lost and vacant, overwhelmed by the ravening tide of demonic anger his dagger had unleashed?

Mama... Papa...

Words he'd know in any language. Primal and ancient as the first language, when whatever beast that would once be Man found the perfect oscillation of sounds for the two beings it needed so desperately.

And she did not have them... until, perhaps, her eyes turned to them.

"Shyke-!"

Not nearly enough time. She flew like an arrow trailing shining hair and Razkar's hands snapped to his weapons, Myrian instincts taking over and determining that, no, he couldn't win this battle... but, yes, he would sure as shyke go to his Goddess fighting.

"For My-"

It was half a tick after her arms enfolded around him that the Myrian realized she wasn't fighting... mainly because he wasn't dead. She was so small that he managed to get both his weapons free, arms wide above her and loaded with steel, without even disturbing her flowing hair.

But as he looked down, his final, defiant snarl crumbled. He felt the racking sobs from her tiny frame spilling over into his own. So stunned was the warrior his body only caught up to the fact she was so... cold. Not the debilitating, paralyzing touch of before but almost like she was a corpse left long in a snow drift.

No. Not a snow drift.

"Y-you were there! You lived there, right? S-so! Why didn't you save me? Why? Mama and Papa wouldn't have died if you come.. so..."

Some patch of Falyndar, cloaked from Syna and Leth by thick and ancient branches. Some blood-decked stretch of some clan's lands some year, some day... and it ruined her. Not just in her life, but after.

"Why?"

Pleading, childish eyes looked up at him, and he felt... strangely afraid that he did not have the answers she yearned for. What child did not want to know why such disaster befell them? What adult, for that matter? Would some straight, simple answer at least soothe them? Ease their pain?

Razkar sighed, feeling so much older than his twenty-seven summers. Under Ama's stunned eyes, he stroked that freezing cheek and shook his head.

"Only gods know," he whispered to her, a wan smile on his face as he wiped the icy blood from underneath her eye, "And I am no god..."

It was pathetic, and he knew it. A meaningless platitude for a horrific incident... but what else could he say? The little ghost tipped her head and her sobbing continued against his chest. The Myrian sighed again, and cursed himself.

It would have been better to leave her. Safer, too. She was not a girl anymore, he almost snapped at Ama before. She was, but now she was something more... and less.

But as he cradled her in his arms, ghostly form light as a skeleton, and lifted her up against his shoulder... he couldn't believe it anymore. Not yet, anyway.

Razkar turned to the Kelvic, silent and disbelieving the whole time. His feet crunched over the still-sodden leaves, loud now that the bonfire was dying down, licks of flame giving way to steady belches of smoke. He stooped only once, to retrieve her daggers, and that blasted abomination he had crafted for Fubuki.

He turned it over in his hands, wondered if the battle within Fubuki's mind was won or lost. Time would tell. His eyes met Ama's, and he nodded his farewell.

"I take her home."

"Travel safe, Myrian."

Ama watched the strange quiet male trudge through the dying light with his sleeping charge, back towards the mighty torch in the distance: Syliras.

LootTwo scimitar-like swords, made of something that could be metal or polished stone. Both glow in the sun, one seeming to emit heat when swung, and the other is icy cold. Razkar has no idea what these weapons are, but is taking them as trophies and, most likely, sale.

[Perplexity]

Riddled With Rewards Fubuki Kouri Experience Skill XP Earned Soulmist Projection + 1 EXP Lores • Lore Earned • The Various Disciplines of Magic • Ama and Razkar In The Woods • Grumpy Ghost: Angry With Razkar • The Bronze Horde: Vanquishing the Yukmen • The Agony of Unlife: Broken Memories, Bitter Rewards Razkar Experience Skill XP Earned Hunting + 1 EXP Tracking + 2 EXP Persuasion + 3 EXP Weapon: Short Bow + 2 EXP Endurance +2 EXP Acrobatics +1 EXP Malediction +3 EXP Philosophy +1 EXP Lores • Lore Earned • Ama: Guardian of the Forest • The Demands of a Ghost • Yukman Savagery • Me? Apologize? Never! • The Bronze Horde: Vanquishing the Yukmen • Of Gods and Mortals: Fate and Fortune Notes : For all of your crustiness Razkar, you’re such a big teddy bear. Sort of. • | Razkar- You may either sell the Scimitars for approximately 80 GM a piece or I can devise a moderated thread for you in which Razkar discerns their properties. The choice is yours. • | Ms. Kouri- You are now in possession of a Maledicted dagger! "The blade burns the flesh of the living when touched but not because it is hot. Indeed, the dagger is icy. It exudes an aura of emptiness. With each cut that is made the victim is pummeled with the weight of a dozen sorrows the likes of which only the dead could truly comprehend. But with each cut the wielder makes they are also consumed by it. Cut a victim too many times and one runs the risk of being paralyzed with the aching fury of the mournful and being driven utterly and terribly mad with grief."