Flashback Storm.

[Ayatah]

Breathe: just focus on breathing and you’ll live.

So Ayatah inhaled, and then blew a cool jet of air from her lips. Pressure eased, her muscles relaxed a fraction…

Yes, that was easy. Let’s try it again, shall we?

Once again she obliged the strange, calm voice of her mind. This time her lungs burnt and the air caught in her throat so she choked and retched. She rolled onto her side, bringing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them. Her eyes closed, and Ayatah waited, waited, waited -- though what exactly she was waiting for, she did not know. Time drifted past, though the half-breed could not have said whether it had been a chime, a bell or a year. Her senses were muddled save for the strange pains that ripped inside her randomly.

Something foreign had buried itself deep within her cells; making her skin crawl and nerve endings spasm and twitch. At the same time, something quite different was trying to fight its way out of her body, clawing at her insides and her heart and now her brain…

But these sensations were all internal to her; Aya could feel nothing of the grass she lay upon, or the wind that had blown so savagely just chimes before.

The wind, where is the wind?

It had been such a nuisance, something so foreboding and terrible but now Ayatah almost missed it. The sudden stillness - and the silence that came with it - was all the more terrifying. The jungle was never tranquil; it was full of life, full of animals and insects that buzzed and growled. So why was it suddenly so perfectly still?

A mixture of courage and stupidity made Ayatah open her eyes to investigate. Her head throbbed as if she had drank her weight in wine the previous night, but Aya glowered and forced her arms to prop herself up, to observe her jungle home. Everything looked so… normal.

But then she turned towards the blockade, and saw… nothing, no one.

Confusion hit her first; where had her comrades gone during such a time? How had they managed to simply up and leave like that?

Then came the panic; was she the only one left? Ayatah twisted around (almost vomiting at the sudden movement), and was relieved when she caught sight of Alva and Tinnok. They also seemed to have suffered some great… thing… whatever the shyke had just happened. Her intellect, knowledge and reading would not help her; Ayatah simply did not understand what had happened, and that scared her more than anything.

So she tried to speak. She opened her mouth, made some strange noise, and then sighed. Licking her lips, Ayatah tried again.”What..?” Goddess, voice was so hoarse and broken. The word was a simple one, though perfectly summed up her confusion and fear.

Her muscles contracted and twisted once again, and with a gasp, Ayatah’s hand flew to her stomach. Whatever life had existed in there had been stolen from her body -- but with a Myrian-esque growl, Aya refused to admit defeat, or the truth.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Tinnok]

Slowly the sky changed, the strange sense faded, as if the entire event had been but a dream. The pain was still there, ripping at her body like a vice-grip, twisting her guts around. She retched again, but this time only yellowed spittle from the depths of her stomach came up.

Slowly, very slowly, she slid her backside across the ground until she was against a tree, propping herself upon it. This felt even worse on her stomach, having it in an in between state rather than elevated or lying down,Tinnok lay upon her back once more, gazing up at unchanged foliage as if it would explain to her what had happened. She couldn't even bear to communicate through Nura, so deeply this strange rending of her innards sank into her. It was like being violently ill in the blink of an eye, without cause or purpose. The time that had lapsed since the entire collection of guards had vanished couldn't of been more than a few chimes, yet Tinnok felt as if lifetimes had passed. Why had she not died, and why did she not die, but still feel as if the world still feel like it wanted to tear her apart, molecule by molecule?

The feeling did not fade, and wouldn't for some time, but some aspect of her knew that she had to get up. Faculties slowly returned, and before worrying about Aya, or the Kelvic, she realized there was a greater and much more pressing mattter at hand: The Dhani.

Precisely how long did they have till the creatures realized what this meant? Had any seen? Were there scouts out? It wouldn't be long before this place would be swarming with snakes, triumphant that their jailers had perished some wonderfully unnatural fate, perhaps at the hands of their very own Goddess.

At this she struggled to rise, fear and panic over this taking over her. They needed to return to the city and warn Taloba, to get reinforcements for the blockade. It would take days...but it was a job they had to do, or the army would be running around the jungle, blind to the fact of the trouble.

Knowing she needed to get up, however, and actually doing it were two entirely different things.

[Ayatah]

Each time Ayatah would describe her own experience of this event (a task she and her friend would be expected to do thousands of times over, in a poor attempt to gain some clarification on what had happened), there was a small part of the story that she refused to share with anyone else except for her own, hopeless self.

It came shortly after the ripping sensations had eased, after the winds had died, after the pain had stopped and after the vomit had finally quit spewing out of her body. After all that strange, unwelcome activity, there was a moment - a chime, at the most - of complete, utter stillness. In one moment, there had been more physical sensations than Ayatah had ever experienced, and in the next, there was a frightening lack of anything. Her own senses were dulled: her vision dark and bleary, as if she was seeing the world through tears (she would later realise she had been), her ears ringing with a strange, high-pitched wail of silence, and she felt not like she was lying on grass, but was floating.

It was this unnatural stillness that scared Ayatah the most. How could something - everything - be happening in one moment, but absolutely nothing, complete oblivion, be happening in the next?

Her thoughts were rampant and panicked, throwing strange images from her past that made no sense: child versions of herself and Tinnok poking a giant toad with sticks, a group of teenage boys imitating Ayatah as she read a book quietly in the market place, Quinneth teaching her younger siblings and cousins to walk... They came fast and thick, unwelcome memories that would have been cherished in any other scenario but this.

And then her thoughts turned all the more perverse; a newborn held against her breast, its fresh skin darker than her own, but still paler than the other hand resting protectively upon it's scalp. Another image, of the same child - older now - waving a wooden axe about as she babbled in some made-up child speak. As the infant toddled into the light, her skin glinted ever so slightly and Ayatah felt a surge of artificial warmth and pride.

Yes, she could see now! Those happy images disintegrated to reveal the jungle, looking the same as it had done for thousands of years: green, alive, her home. Slowly Ayatah allowed herself to become aware of reality, starting with a tentative wiggle of her toes and fingers before daring to lift her head up off the grass.

It was the blood on the inside of her thighs than made Ayatah wobble and lie back down.

Suddenly, she felt sick again.

|| Ayatah's speech || Ayatah's thoughts || Others' speech ||

[Tinnok]

oocermergerd I totally forgot about the baby! The sadness...

She sat up a bit more. Her mind doing a bit of calculating. She, Aya, and the tiger Kelvic all were not full breed Myrians. She saw a few more bodies alive, groaning and retcing up nothingness, and knew that they too must be like them...not full bloods.

That was when the first roar of pain crossed the scene. There were always tiger riders manning the blockade, and it was even rarer to be a half breed with a tiger. They had lost their riders and didn't know what to do.

One breath, two. There were things that needed to be done. Every tick she spent sitting here was another tick for the Dhani to figure out what had happened. Still she didn't notice any activity from the dark entryway, but they had to know...and if not now then soon.

"Aya..." She began weakly, her voice cracked. "We have to get to Tal-" Her eyes roved her childhood friend. Her skin shone with sweat, her face even paler than usual, but punctuating her skin was a running line of crimson creating a small river down her leg. Tinnok's first instinct was to look down at her own legs, but she would have felt the bleeding, no...no...

All of those Myrians are probably dead, or even worse wherever they are. Many more will die too, if you don't get up.

"I'm Sorry." She grunted in pain, head swimming painfully at the sudden shift in equilibrium that was created when she rose. Trees wound themselves around her, and another roar could be heard. She saw a flash of orange to her left. How many tigers were there...five, a dozen? 20? These were details that she perhaps should have known, or perhaps they were details that never needed to be known. The tigers would be their best defense against the Dhani, but also the fastest way back to the city...if...if they'd let anyone ride them.

Tinnok lowered her arm for Ayatah to take, her other hand pressed against her throbbing temple, her whole body aching from whatever force had tried to tear her asunder. It was if it had reached into every muscle and ligament, like she had been trampled by a Tskanna, or thrown down a canyon yet not broken any bones.

Stop making analogies, we need to get back to the city...somehow

When Ayatah was on her feet Tinnok would begin shakily wandering towards the nearest Myrian tiger, who was sniffing a shining sword left behind by its rider.

"Please friend, we need to go warn the others."

You survived the storm to get eaten by an angry tiger
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[Ayatah]

A voice roused Ayatah from her depthless sense of pain, and it made her blink and splutter as if she had been drowning.

"Tinnok."

The half-Eypharian shifted her weight upwards, not exactly controlling her body as such, but relying on muscular instinct to stop her body from falling backwards once more. Her arms propped herself up successfully, but Aya had to fight the desperation to lie down and wait to die.

Her friend was speaking again, saying words that took a chime for Ayatah to understand. Was Tinnok talking in Myrian, or another language? We have to go. Suddenly she was looking into those yellow, slitted eyes - though her own mind was so slow and lagged that it took Aya a moment to realise her friend was closer than she had been before.

How did she move so quick?

And now Tinnok was standing! Through bleary, unregistering eyes, Ayatah watched her childhood friend conquer the impossible by hauling herself upright onto her feet. How remarkable, how did she do that? A horrid feeling of complete and utter imbalance ruled Aya's brain, as if she was drunk on the strongest liquor in existence. The idea of standing was unfathomable.

But now the other half-breed stooped and lowered her arm, and Aya stared at it in horror. Was the expectation that she stood up, too? How impossible. But her arms and legs - still stained with now drying blood - began moving of their own accord. One hand gripped Tinnok's arm, the other pushed her shoulders forward. For a brief chime, Ayatah would have appeared to be doing something close to a crab impersonation. But then her legs shuffled under herself, and with a surprising bounce, Aya scrambled upwards.

Success!

She quickly turned away from her friend to vomit aggressively, bringing up a mouth of yellow bile and spittle. When she twisted back, Tinnok had disappeared to the left, and it took Aya a chime longer than usual to realise where she had gone.

She's touching a tiger!

Her mind was muddled, her body erupted in sparks of pain, but even in this state Ayatah was still shocked at what she was seeing. The tigers were fiercely loyal their partnered warriors, and it was always risky for a relative stranger to approach one. But - the realisation came to Ayatah in a slow burn - the tigers had been left too. They were most likely in a similar state of pain and confusion, so for once they were equal to the half-bloods.

She shifted her feet, and began half-waddling, half-limping towards another tiger. Her brain pulsated with each footstep, sending a shattering, hot sensation down her spinal cord and out to her limbs. But Ayatah plodded on, a hand extended towards her chosen feline. The giant animal, a veteran of war and battle, sat hunched down, ears flattened against its skull. When Ayatah approached, it released a low grumble that ended as a strange whining noise. The tiger was beaten, by an unknown enemy neither animal nor Myrian could comprehend. But both were creatures of the jungle, both children of Myri, and both wanted to return to their Goddess-Queen in Taloba.

"Help us." Ayatah choked, quickly swallowing after her words were vocalised to stop herself from vomiting again. The tiger flicked its thick tail, bared its teeth, but made no other movements to attack or aid Ayatah. Helpless, she turned back to her friend to see how the other half-breed was faring with her new pet.

.

[Tinnok]

It let her touch just above its nose, the soft short hair on its muzzle sending a strange sensation through Tinnok's finger tips as the contact gave into phylonura. The tiger seemed calm on the outside, but within she felt its fear, rage, and confusion, so powerful she broke contact and closed her eyes, taking a step back. Myrian tigers were highly intelligent creatures, and though it knew as little about this event as she, the beast, a male, knew exactly what he had lost. He had lost his partner and bonded rider, a powerful capable woman who was rising fast through the ranks. She could feel his pride in her, now a misplaced and lost emotion rolling amidst everything else.

She is gone, but many others will be gone too if we don't tell the Queen.

The tigers of course new of the supreme Myrian, she was fond of the beasts, and they could feel her power, a creature worthy of respect. That struck a chord in the male tiger, a rumble in his throat emerging, even as her stomach continued to roil. She separated contact again to dry heave on the forest floor, suddenly losing her grip, that iota of control she had been able to wrestle back and she was on her knees again, the barest bit of bile coming out as spittle and dripping onto the leaves below. She felt something bump gently against her shoulder, the tiger's muzzle again, and raised a hand to stroke the forehead, the head lifting her back up to her feet with a single easy motion. She took another few moments to re-collect, glancing at Ayatah and her companion before glancing around. Her fellow half breeds were at various levels of realization, horror, and recovery.

"Listen." it came out as a hoarse cough. "Everyone listen!" That one turned a few heads.

"We need one or two tigers to take the message back to Taloba, one rider to bring it. These tigers are all just as scared as we are, but they know what needs to be done. Who here thinks they can ride one long enough to return to the city?"

"And how in the petch are we going to ride these things?" A male with a brilliant shock of red hair said, one hand on a tree trunk that seemed to be keeping him upright.

"Because I'll convince them they need a rider to tell Taloba what happened." Tinnok said evenly, holding up her right arm to show those close enough her phylonura mark. "The rest of us, we need to stay, to hold the blockade until reinforcements arrive."

"That is insane. Once the Dhani realize what's happened they will swarm out here and kill us all." Said the red haired male.

Tinnok grunted, holding her now sore stomach. "We have the tigers that were left behind, I will do my best to rally them, and may I ask what you intend to tell your superiors about why you left your post in one of our most dire bells?" Normally this half breed would never have cared, nor dared to take control of any situation. Of all the mixed bloods she was still the most despised, but she also knew Caiyha's gift, her responsibility to which she had been bestowed could turn around this horrible event. If she was not a Witch the tigers might flee, maul, or do any number of unpredictable things, and they were their key to surviving, to keeping the Dhani forces at bay lest they spread out into the wilderness, coming upon unsuspecting clans who had no idea about what had happened. As it was they had a chance, a slim chance, to make it through this.

To her statement there was no retort from the red haired male, and all of the mixed bloods there were used to being on the lower rungs, not sure what to do with a potential leadership opportunity. "I'll ask again, is anyone fit to ride?"

The male tiger stood at her shoulder, as if to enforce her right to command the leftovers of the strange and horrible storm.

oocSo sorry for the delay, feel free to move this is as far as you like in the next post, I figured Ayatah would stay, but it might be fun to roleplay the two of them at different points too haha.
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[Ayatah]

In the near future, this would perhaps be the only time her half-Dhani friend would be congratulated for being one of Caiyha's Witches and not Myri's favoured warriors. Ayatah watched Tinnok, a faint feeling of warmth and pride bubbling within her stomach -- which she quickly realised was the need to vomit yet again.

When she looked back at her friend after offloading another mouthful of bile, Aya saw how the half-breed appeared to be kept upright by her tiger. This simple act of kindness, extended from beast to Myrian, was enough to secure Ayatah's desperate confidence. She's done it. Her eyes closed and for the first time since the storm, she smiled. Somehow, with a magic that Aya would never understand herself, Tinnok had gained the trust of a Myrian tiger. It was unheard of, and wonderful.

"I'll ride." The words came out of her mouth before Ayatah had even truly considered them. She knew she could not fight - something strange and maternal confirmed that - and so riding to Taloba was the only alternative.

Of course, there was the slight issue of needing to actually ride the tiger. The only thing Ayatah had rode in her entire lifetime was her mother's broad shoulders when she a toddler, secured by Paira's tight grip on her daughter's legs to stop the gangly child from falling off. To sit atop a Myrian tiger, and not break her neck after falling off, would be a great challenge.

She looked sadly around at her ragtag group of comrades. The redhead had been correct; the Dhani would soon be leaking out of Zinrah in a stream of death, slaughtering the small amount of Myrians that remained in the jungle. And even with the tigers to ride, Aya and her fellow travellers could come across a greater foe, some abomination created in this storm of strangeness. "I'll ride." She repeated, this time stepping forwards and raising a hand.

The redhead rolled his eyes, tutting audibly to the half-Eypharian and this whole horrid scenario. There was an awkward chime of silence, where Ayatah watched her comrades through wavering eyes, waiting for another few volunteers to join her. Eventually, three stepped forward.

"I suppose I'll have to as well,"

"For Myri."

"For survival."

Ayatah nodded, pleased that the responsibility of passing the message onto Taloba had not fallen on her shoulders alone. Even if something dreadful did happen in the jungle on the way to city, with four riders hopefully at least one would survive the entire journey. She did not know the name of the other half-breeds, and this struck Ayatah as strange, a little sad. It had been the shared experience of a soiled heritage that had bonded Tinnok and her as friends in childhood, yet here were a group of other mixed-blooded individuals, many of whom she had never conversed with. The one thing that united them all had now appeared to have saved them, yet they barely knew each other.

The half-breed turned to Tinnok, but did not move from her wobbly standing point - walking still seemed painfully impossible. She nodded towards the tiger standing at her friend's shoulder. "Are they ready?"

Whether or not she meant the tigers or the half-breeds would remain unclear.

.

[Tinnok]

There was an uncertainy curling in her gut along with the horrid sickness, there and the fierce pounding in her head that she thought had dulled, only to return with a sharp vengeance that made her lean into the male tiger slightly heavier. Normally the Myrian tigers guarding the entrance to the city wanted barely anything to do with her, probably because some snake scent carried upon her that they could somehow detect. This one's protective instincts seemed to have kicked in, feeling the pain of the Witch through her Phylonura mark, and supporting her like a giant furred and muscled pillar of strength. For a moment, clear and solid, Tinnok was pained to think that she would never be accepted tightly enough into the Myrian ranks to be able to ride one of these great and noble beasts.

As the voices rose, offering to ride, a relief, but also a sort of release of the energy she had summoned up for this task left her. That Ayatah's voice would come up so strong and sure first, made her extremely proud to be such good friends with the half Eypharian.

Her contact with the Myrian tiger male broke, the massive feline roaring out and calling to his comrades. Slowly, one by one, orange forms or distant answers could be heard. Tinnok could see her fellows stiffen as those who volunteered to ride got closer. To Aya's question, Tinnok honestly wasn't sure. If she had to repeat this whole process for every tiger, it would be a time draw that none of them could afford, but it seemed her new friend sensed this as well. As the tigers, one by one came into the ranks Tinnok realized how petching many Myrians guarded the entrance to Zinrah. For every one riderless tiger that meant tens of Myrian soldiers, one a tiger rider. Slowly, first ten, then twenty, then around 30 of the massive beasts emerged. There would be more at both ends of the blockade, perhaps with other half breed survivors, perhaps fleeing...this this would have to do for now.

It was a female, larger than the male that Tinnok had befriended that snarled, roared and even bit at him, clearly the dominant one of the group, though scuffles were happening all over the tiger ranks, all of them agitated, and furious at the transpired events. Eventually the male bowed slightly, backing out of the massive female's way, Tinnok taking a step forward only to be met with a hostile growl that suggested not moving another inch towards her.

The half breed made due with the fact that her phylonura could be used through eye contact, drifting into massive amber orbs to be faced with a barrier that wanted nothing to do with the half breed. She got a level of animosity and disgust that seemed quite equal to any pure blood Myrian's disdain for her, and Tinnok snarled herself, appearing to anyone not within their minds to be in an intense staring contest with the huge female tiger.

She tried to stress the necessity of going back to the city, the female just snarled, she tried to appeal to her respect for the warriors that had fallen and that seemed only to ignite the tiger's rage further. They didn't have time for this, and every tick was making the half breed's head pound harder, making her lips curl in fury.

"SHE'LL HAVE DIED FOR NOTHING!!" Screamed Tinnok into the face of the tiger. Perhaps all those who had vanished without a trace were not dead, for to be sure, it didn't look like any sort of death she had ever seen, but one thing was for sure, there was no point on waiting to see if those gone would suddenly re-appear back in their clothes as if nothing had happened.

The Myrian Tiger started forward, looking like she wanted to swallow Tinnok's head in one gulp, which she easily could have done and taken most of her upper body as well. The half breed snarled right back into the face. Death at the hands of a Dhani, death at the hands of this stubborn, equally racist tiger, what did it matter? She hauled back her elbow and punched the Myrian tiger right in her snout.

There was a pause from the massive beast, used to intimidating all those lesser beings, also known as anyone who was not a tiger rider in Myri's army. This little upstart of a thing had gone so far as to strike her when she could rip her limb from limb, and Tinnok took full advantage of the pause to dive right into her mind, her thoughts forming the image of Taloba burning at Dhani hands, her fellow tigers getting slaughtered by the Dhani who would crawl out of the tunnels. They needed to get to the city, to warn them, so others would come and protect from Dhani attacks. Its what she would do. Tinnok urged through the link.

That was one disrespect too far apparently, as a massive paw swiped Tinnok to ground heavily, knocking what little wind she possessed out of her lungs. She could feel the searing anger at the back of her mind that was the tiger, refusing to let some green half breed, and a snake one no less, tell her, who her rider was. That being said, as Tinnok dragged herself up to try to further reason with her, she was already rallying the other tigers. There was a lot of snarling, growling and swipes to decide who would ride to the city, all wanted to stay, none wanted the task of riding back and leaving their fellows behind, though Tinnok could sense few cared for the half blooded Myrians that had survived.

Finally, however, 3 parted from the crowd, the smallest of the tigers (as if any of them could be called such a thing), faster, and also less dominant than their brothers and sisters. A female came to Aya, and two males to the others, one of the volunteers needing to stay behind.

Tinnok brushed the female, looking at Aya with pained eyes as she mounted up. "Be safe, we will wait for your return." She gave a nod of thanks to the other riders, blinking back a surge of emotion that seemed to have been held back with shock at the strange and twisted events of an otherwise normal day.
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