Solo To Make You Stay

[Uleru]

Fall 90th
Year 513
5th Bell


"I'm tired", she moans in her sleep, her body contorting on the rocky shelf where she has made her bed. "I'm so tired..."

But still she is dragged fitfully along in this web of nightmares. It’s almost a pattern now. The same one night after night. There is no body to stop and no eyes to close in this place. She is drifting unfettered by such earthly things and unable to stop the images that flash through her worn, tired mind.

Razkar is next. The Myrian who dragged the sea out of her precious friend and left it there to rot. Who's black hands wielded the blade that tried to rip the moulding apart. His tattoos lap gently down his back, the circle of skulls on his back dancing a merry jig and singing an old shanty song that you can hear children sing on the Flotilla. In his lap is a quiver of barbed arrows. He buffs them clean with a fistful of red hair.

"Go down you blood red roses go down,
Go down you blood red roses go down,
Oh you pinks and posies
Go down you blood red roses go down"

She almost expects what comes next in her parade of horrors, but her body goes cold all the same. Edreina stands there with her back to Uleru, standing calm and still as she is being consumed by her Oceanus mark. The happy, bubbling gnosis growing and devouring her like a cancer, flickering like a thousand tongues of flame. And the woman starts to turn as if she can feel the Otani watching...

Uleru wakes with a tortured scream and a violent burst of colour. She was so sure, so sure, that when Edreina turned, just where she should have seen the dancing Svefran blue eyes of her friend-

-instead the empty sockets were packed dry with dirt.

••••••

The recurring dream is still eating away at her a bell later as she stomps up and down the beach not far outside of Sanctuary's heavy sea doors. Her mind is a kaleidoscope of confusion as she snarls at the emptiness in front of her. Though it is a totally different type of emptiness she is truly confronting.

"What could I do?! What could I do?! It was all his fault! I couldn't change your mind Reina! I couldn't call you back! He had you and there was nothing I could do!”

The moulding finally stops her wearing pace and shrieks in childish frustration like a kettle letting out the pressure of the steam with one piercing whistle.

There was a way to stop her though. There always was. She just had to change the Svefra’s mind. There was one shot, one moment where they confronted each other on the deck of the Goldengrotto and she blew it. She let her closest friend walk away into the arms of the wrong monster.

That cant happen again. She wont let it happen again. To let someone so close be disenchanted by the sea... She could have taken care of all of the friends who had left, if only they'd stayed and let her...

"I need to convince you to stay", she snarls at the empty space.

[Uleru]

Bells later, she finds herself hanging by her elbows off one of Riverfall’s notorious docks. For once she is not taking the opportunity to tease passing workmen, share a shanty or nick some of their precious cargo. The dream is still festering in her mind, making her testy and dousing her playful mood. She's sure that if anyone were to look close enough they would see the thought there bubbling away in her head; a corrosive, physical thing. At least the woman she is haggling (in her own unique way) with doesn’t seem to notice this dark stain. At least thats something.

After much pondering, and another small tantrum, she has scratched her mind raw and is resigned to the only solution she can scour: Hypnotism. Hypnotism is not uncommon with her species, or so she finds. There was even one female she met a long time ago that could sing men right off their own ship. Her beautiful voice and her power of wordless persuasion had grown men drowning themselves at her suggestion. The less talented (and less radical) have simply used the magic to persuade offerings from sailors and to make playmates from even the most reluctant of sea beasts.
 
Either way it is a powerful tool, reaching into someones mind like that. Not even to tug on the strings like some freakish puppet master, but to carefully plant the suggestion for the puppet to pull the strings for you. Convince them that that is what they wanted all along.
 
The moulding snorts in laughter at the such clichéd and evil metaphors she is conjuring. That's an awfully dark thought coming from an Otani, what the void is wrong with her?
 
None the less, this bit of twisted magic could be an answer to her prayers. With this she could convince her loved ones to stay with the sea and the maturing to stay with her! It couldn't be more perfect. She just needs something to help her learn this new discipline.
 
"I'll give you gold, my love, gold enough for three.
I'll give you gold, my love, if you give your vanity to me." the Otani sings, sickly sweet with something close to teasing and the glint of ten gold-rimmed mizas shinning through the back of her cupped hands.
 
The woman looks both affronted and unsure, but she hasn't left yet. She's a pretty thing, but she does her best to sabotage her beauty with a thick layer of makeup. In the sash of her dress sits the small mirror that the monster is bartering for, It's pearl handle all that's visible.
 
Seeing no consent in the woman's eyes, the moulding starts up the song again.

"I'll give you gold, my love, gold enough for three.
I'll give you gold, my love, if you give your vanity to me."
 
Gold will make you happy, never will it pale
Gold will make you happy where your vanity will fail.
 
I'll give you gold, my love, gold is all you need
I'll give you gold, my love, if you give your vanity to me"
 
The Otani punctuates the song with a shake of her hands, making the coins clink musically and immediately snapping the attention of every poor, hungry dockhand within earshot. The woman licks her lips, torn between rebuking the monster that's insulting her and taking the generous amount of coins from which she could buy many more mirrors. But her greed eventually trumps her sense of pride. She quickly bends to scoop every coin out of the monsters cold hands and whips the small mirror out of her dress and all but throws it at the beast, who deftly catches the object in her shimmering hand.
 
The lady turns and rushes away, her head bent in self loathing and her fist of coins clutched to her chest, leaving Uleru to examine her prize. It's a lovely item, the silver back studded with glass jewels and tiny pearls in an intricate pattern. But that's not what has the Otani's attention. She catches her reflection in the mirror and just stares at it for uncounted chimes. How long has it been since she's seen her reflection so clearly? Calm, dark water will suffice to a point, but she is too transparent to see anything more than a glowing outline.
 
The moulding reaches up to touch her face, tracing the outline of her cheek. Then, as if unable to help herself, she pulls a stupid, gargoyle face at herself. She giggles childishly, and studies her spontaneously laughing face in the mirror. Then she tries laughing a different way, crinkling her eyes and pulling back her lips like she has seen people do. From this she switches expressions from shocked to serious to angry, punctuating her studies by fitful bursts of laughter and the occasional gargoyle face.
 
It takes an entire bell for her to remember that there is somewhere she needs to be.