Closed Trepidations (Haneht)

[Mauriel]

80th, Summer, 518AV
around 18 bells

Although Mauriel had learned her way around Lhavit pretty well in the past few dozens of days since her fall, it still wasn't the easiest to fly straight from location to location. She has never seen the city properly from above, as the fog was covering it since her first day here. The only path she knew by heart was the one from her cottage in Okomo Estates to Scholar's Demise. She could fly there blindfolded if need be.

A couple of days ago, visibility became even lower, as dark clouds found their resting place above the city. When she got out of her cottage, she thought they had cleared out a bit, but this petching day had something against the Akvatari, however, as they were already back while she was mid-flight. She felt as though she was in some sort of a weird dream, dim fog surrounding her from all sides, and suddenly she was completely disoriented. Her pulse heightened, which RagespikeRagespike is her talking dagger, info on which can be found in her CS and SS. immediately commented on. "Who's my little girl, huh? A bit of fog is getting to you, isn't it? Baby Mauriel, always on her toes about everything!"

As he was cooing at her from a scabbard on her belt, she started flying down, keeping her arms in front of her so she wouldn't bump into something. She soon found herself pushing against some sort of skyglass building. Where was she? Unfortunately, the skyglass was no hint, as most things were made of skyglass here. And as she couldn't see too much detail of the buildings throughout the season because of the fog, she couldn't recognize it based on architecture or decoration. She moved past its edge and started flying down towards the street, her hands swiping in front of her to detect obstacles. She felt her hand connect to someone's skin, apparently hitting them across the ear, and before she could stop herself, her wing followed suit, slapping the person from the side, before bending out of the way. "I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?" The person had his back turned to her, but it was a very tall man. She blinked twice in his direction, realizing he seemed to have six arms.

"What is that monstrosity?" Ragespike asked. "Maybe I'm not so unlucky to be wielded by a coward, if the alternative is an octopus..."

Damned dagger, always running its mouth. "Shut up for once, Rage!" She pulled him out of the scabbard to look him in its carved metal face, holding him up, not thinking too much about how that could be interpreted, especially by someone who would not immediately assume a dagger was talking to her. She probably looked like a madwoman doing voices or something. "Why can't you ever be nice?"

[Haneht]

80th, Summer 518av

Haneht didn’t know what was wrong these days. The world was going mad, he’s going mad. Everyone was mad, frustratingly incomprehensible. Why?

The summer had started off exceptionally well, then gradually spiralled downwards and descended into a whirlpool of mess. Dragging the Eypharian down along with it. First, he made a new lover—two, actually, his wildest fantasies brought to life—but it turned out he was not supposed to bed siblings within less than a week of each other and that sharing was very much not caring. Then there was him fighting with said jilted lover, getting smacked and jostled around a few times (what was it with Raeyn and violence? He ought to break that brute’s arm, arms) and getting yelled at in the middle of the night for all his neighbours to hear, getting blood smeared on his favourite yellow tunic and front door. Haneht hadn’t seen that much blood since... Ages ago. Then when he returned to Mara, seeking reassurance and comfort, he was denied it. Betrayed. Yelled at again, but he took off before she could hit him. Gods knew what sort temper she might have, if her twin was anything to go by.

That was a few bells ago. Now, he roamed the streets of Lhavit like an aimless beast, cheap liquor in hand to mute his rampaging thoughts. He was not drunk, not yet, just tipsy and very lost, in more ways than one. Iron fan sat in the hem of his pants, and the brunet downed the last of the bottle and threw it carelessly somewhere, glass shattering into a million fragments somewhere behind. The impulses were nagging at him, sweet temptation trailing up and down the spine of his neck in shivers, salacious whispers in his ears, and he had to drown them out before he did something bad. Very bad. He laughed. Wasn’t he a bad man? Perhaps, maybe, he should hit himself instead. Or turn back, and Mara instead. If he was lucky, she just might hit him back hard enough to help put him to sleep.

Something, someone, batted him by the ear. Then jostled and pushed at him with.. some membrane-like part of their body. He could barely see through the fog, except for a winged silhouette that reminded Haneht of the rumoured Zith sightings and present threat. Their apology barely registered in his hazy mind, as fogged as the streets of Lhavit were. “No harm done,” Haneht forced a smile, last of his goodwill and rationality threatening to leave him. It was a good thing the fog would most likely hide that. Soon after, though, it would be of little use, when another voice chimed in with an insult no proud Eyph would ever tolerate. Monstrosity. Octopus. Octopus. “You dare insult me?” Blasphemy! What would this fool understand? Haneht was descended of divine blood, and his arms were proof of his pure ancestry. Six arms. He was the gem of his family, their pride, and how dare this person associate him with a cephalopod, call him a monstrosity? “I am not a Monster, or an octopus. I am above that, but what would Azmashe like you know?” He sneered, and the savage in him rose, shabby bonds weakened in wake of recent events dissolved by misguided anger. “Have you even looked in the mirror?”

This woman was mental! And so, so rude. “Shut up?” The boy’s growl was animalistic now, and he felt himself morph into the monster everyone these days seemed to regard him as. Raeyn, Mara, everyone, everyone. Ahnouk, Ahnouk did too, that was why she haunted him, why she could never stop visiting him in his sleep, tormenting. She knew what he had done. All the bad things that he knew would disappoint her were she still alive, and the rest of his remaining sisters if they ever found out. Six hands rose, spread out in an intimidating array behind the tall male, fingers meaning to claw and hurt. Destroy. “How about I shut you up?”

Mortal seeming shed, he lunged.

[Mauriel]

Mauriel trembled as she realized what was going on. The creature was misunderstanding the situation. He couldn't see her in the fog. And he was very angry. She tried to mutter explanations, but neither was there time nor anything reasonable-sounding to say, and even if there were, she thought it unlikely the person would listen, based on his growling anger.

Threats soon turned to action, several arms lunging at her. Abdomen, arm, neck. Thrust backwards slightly, she flapped her wings to keep the balance and not fall over, slashing mindlessly with her dagger in front of her, trying to keep the six-armed person at bay. Not only did she not have any idea how to use a dagger, she was also a bit dizzy from the punches. Her head was foggy and unclear. She would not be able to conjure the fact up at the moment, but she was probably lucky the guy didn't go all in on one arm, as the force from his body weight was split among them like this.

If he were to pull back to dodge the slashes, she'd switch her dagger hand twice, in order to turn it around to face the other person, while keeping it in her dominant hand. She relied on bluff as much as anything, because as soon as the dangerous situation started unfolding, she realized that Ragespike was likely more of a liability than a help. Her hand being weak and her being short and not having a very far reach compared to this creature meant she could not only be disarmed easily, but her dagger could be used against her. Her only defense was that a reasonable person wouldn't try to fight unarmed against a blade over an insult, but she was growing less and less confident in the reasonableness of the person before her.

[Haneht]

80th, Summer 518av

Murmurs and quiet utterances of apology and explanation were lost to the wind, a rush of air that breezed past his ears as he dived forward towards the humanoid, winged being with a lower half that lacked a pair of legs. Like a Dhani, but not reptilian, and he couldn’t quite tell what sort of creature she was with the unique combination of body parts. A greater anomaly than Haneht himself, but at this point, he was far too agitated to even stop and stare in wonder like he usually did.

She trembled, and the fear and shock was more evident up close. For the briefest of moments, he glimpsed a fair woman’s face, as lost and uncertain as he was. The barest hint of logic poked out from the haze of red, a quiet plea to stop that drowned again in the swirling depths of his mind, hauled back into the abyss by the unknown force that had been plaguing him since his little adventure in Alheas Park. Fingers made a grab at Mauriel’s thin, graceful neck not unlike Haneht’s own, and she drew backwards in response, pulling out a weapon he hadn’t even realised she’d been carrying. He’d only barely managed to get her in a tight, suffocating chokehold before the blade slashed through the air, nicking at vulnerable skin and drawing blood, nearly taking his life had he not arched back as soon as he saw the telltale glint of metal and felt the prick of her knife against his skin. He tried, but didn’t quite succeed in dodging a few more swipes, bending away from whatever he could until he was thrown off balance. Stumbling back a few steps, a thin trail of blood seeped down his throat, a mild superficial wound that was joined by a few more on his arms, braced in front of him to act as shields. Every thin line of red that bloomed in his skin stung like hell, even when they didn’t run very long or deep. “Khur-va!” The young man hissed in Arumenic, teeth gritting together. If he scarred, he was having her head.

The brunet was no swordmaster himself, but even he knew to differentiate between an amateur and someone experienced. Mindless slashing would get her nowhere, and the boy retained enough sense to withdraw his own weapon; the Iron Fan by his waist, seemingly harmless but sure to cut with its fine, sharpened edges. A nasty surprise for a nasty person. The next slash, he interrupted with his fan, opening it up as soon as blade met metal as a sort of deflector and thrusting the offending hand towards the sides with a hard push. Two hands would reach out to grasp it, and another two would do the same for the other arm before his remaining lone free hand, without the fan, gripped at her throat again, tapered fingers coiling tightly to asphyxiate. He made no accounts for the tail she had, the thought of her sweeping his feet out from right beneath him never once crossing his sleep-deprived, slightly intoxicated mind.

[Mauriel]

As the Ethaefal slashed carelessly, she felt a warm liquid on her hand, to her horror realizing that her attack was indeed successful. Before she could determine how she felt about it, however, she was blocked and held in place, and then choked. What even was this situation, why was this happening? She was having a perfectly normal day. To be given a chance by Leth only to waste it on a nonsensical street fight, what was she doing...

Focus! Focus! She could feel the pain in her chest, lightheadedness, and her heart pounding against her ribcage, as she almost unconsciously wiggled her tail to no avail. She flapped her wings a bit, trying to escape, but she was held too tightly. Finally she used her wrist to throw Ragespike to the side, allowing the iron fan to slide down its blade and towards her, but moving her precious fingers out of its way, before floating up and lunging with her tail at the man's legs.

"Oi, you useless shite, why are you giving up already?!" the dagger yelled as it clanked against the ground, grunting. "Petching good for nothing, that's what you are!"

If her hit did cause them to fall over, she was likely to get cut by the iron fan as they fell. Regardless of that, she was severely deprived of oxygen at this point, and somewhat clinging to her consciousness, painfully trying to breathe harder. She'd face him up close if they fell, met with what she saw as a boy's face, her brown eyes locked on his ambers. "Please," she'd cough out. The terror on her doe-eyed face matched the syllable faintly uttered, as a drop of the boy's blood slid down her jaw. Not like this, just please not like this...

[Haneht]

80th, Summer 518av

There was an advantage to having more hands, even if only one of them was actually dexterous enough to wield a weapon. However, it also meant that most of his weight came from his upper half, and imbalance came more easily than one would expect.

Clattering and yelling drew his attention away for a mere tick, but apparently it had been enough to allow the other a window of opportunity to distract Haneht and go for his legs with a spotted seal’s tail. Having his legs swept out from beneath him was an unpleasant surprise, earning a yelp from the Eyph as the woman sent them both tumbling to the stone ground. The grip on both her arms disappeared, hands moving to brace himself as they met the ground on either sides of her, and the fan clattered noisily out of his grip as well. The shrill orchestra in his head peaks, climaxing as he suffocated the prone form now beneath him.

Breaths escaped in light pants, blood and adrenaline thrumming in his veins, heart pounding against his rib cage. The woman beneath him was so vulnerable, so easy and fragile, and Haneht held her life in his hands as he straddled her. Desperation alight in her eyes, brown and doe-like and staring out pleadingly from beneath her lashes. Melancholic, ethereal beauty that, in a better state of mind, the boy would’ve been able to aprreciate without having her throat in a trembling, vice-like grip. He could almost taste the fear. She was afraid of him.

Please, a glint of gold; Ahnouk’s bracelet on his wrist. Please.

His grip loosened, bloody mist retreating from his mind. Suddenly, Haneht was just a boy again, could breathe again, could see. The Akvatari beneath him—only now did he recognise the beautiful race of mystery and arts—stares up in terror, in fear that the brunet had never wanted from anyone and yet couldn’t help but feel thrilled by and ashamed of. A drop of red trailed down her jaw, and for a chime Haneht remained, stilled and lost in his own mindacape, shoulders rising and falling heavily. A lull in the storm.

“I...” he didn’t know what he could say, to justify any of his actions. Responsibility had never been— he’d never really taken responsibility before. And what was there to say to someone you’d tried to murder? Sorry you nearly died? “I never meant to.” The dancer swallowed thickly, amber pools bearing into hers in earnest desperation, seeking forgiveness he rightfully should never deserve. Mara, Raeyn, and many more names long lost, faces the Casanova had been intimately and passionately acquainted with once but had never committed to memory. His Father, his sisters. Ahnouk. Now, this poor woman who had done nothing. There had been two voices, he finally realised. The knife had spoken. An animation. Yet the boy had been stupid enough to confuse that rude thing’s voice for the gentle and sweet one of the woman’s, who had been merciful enough to throw her weapon aside, bare herself to her attacker. Truly, she meant no harm, and knowing that made him ashamed. To commit such a violent, unwarranted act of violence... Even Haneht was not so shallow to think he could get away with it, that it was not his fault.

Eyes glassy and burning, he removed his hands fully. “I’m sorry.”

Haneht had never meant to hurt anyone.

[Mauriel]

As she was released, the brunette gasped frantically for air, caressing the burning flesh of her throat. She disassociated, muttered apologies meaning nothing in the face of her fear. It's not that she didn't care, it's that she couldn't focus on them right now. As soon as her breathing commenced, she felt a sudden drop in energy, and every urge to crawl away and somehow escape from this madman was beyond her. She gently pushed herself from the ground, bumping into the boy absent-minded, before moving her wing out of the way and curling up in a fetal position, trembling.

She couldn't think about anything in particular. Leth, life, death, the boy, the petching dagger, all was just mist in her mind. Her head was comfortingly empty. Slowly, she began to feel her muscles aching. There was another sharp pain at her abdomen. Apparently she was cut right bellow her ribcage. She couldn't tell the depth of the cut, nor did the severity of the pain flooding her mind especially stand out from how the rest of her body felt. She watched her own blood spilling on the pavement, as if it were the most interesting show a group of traveling actors have ever put on. Look, how it spreads somewhat unevenly, but constantly, she thought as the volume steadily increased, as if she was reading about it in a book, far away from the situation, the danger, the pain.

She would need a few minutes to regain semblances of her composure.

[Haneht]

80th, Summer 518av

Absent-mindedly, he thought that the angry red fingerprints around her delicate neck were sure to bruise. In a few days, maybe even overnight, they would bloom into beautiful carnations of mottled reds and purples, then fade into a sickly blue-green. You made that, he told himself, unable to look away from the morbid masterpiece he’s achieved with his unbridled anger, wistful smile twitching at his lips. As the Akvatari slowly sat up, like a serene princess risen from slumber, despite being seemingly numb and in shock, Haneht rose off her as well, not quite feeling his legs. He got to his knees on the ground by her inwardly curling figure.

When his apology seemed to go unnoticed, fallen to deaf ears, he finally stirred to his senses, least bit of composure regained with his fragile sanity. “Ma’am?” His voice called out uncertainly, hoarse from the strain it took to even utter one word. Only then did he notice the trickle of red pooling into the paved road, precious life coating a thin layer of paint on stone. Immediately, he scrambled to fuss over her, alarmed by the possibility of having somehow dealt a fatal blow. He hadn’t even swung his fan! He should be bleeding out, not her! When had–had it been when they fell? He knew he’d lost track of the fan of his grip, but what awful sort of luck was this?

Gingerly, he slid a hand under her head, other hand moving to press down on the wound. A person trained in medicine would’ve been able to tell, upon inspecting, that the cut likely hadn’t gone deep enough to leave her on Dira’s doorstep and merely needed sutures at most, but to Haneht, whose only skills were in dancing and getting into trouble, it was enough to send him into a panic.

“Healer,” he decided, hoping none had alerted the Shinya and that the peculiar talking knife of hers would keep its mouth shut about all this. If the Eypharian threatened to sink it down into the ocean in a stone-weighted box, have it go for a thousand-year swim with the fishes, would it listen?

“I’ll take you to the healer.”

[Mauriel]

Upon the boy's touch, she started to come to her senses, as if awoken from a slumber - slightly irritable and confused. When he pressed down on her wound she let out a loud yelp, before clenching her teeth and gripping one of his hands with her own. In her vulnerability she needed support, and he was the only one around. She thought she must be crazy. She wasn't happy with the pain, but it wasn't the main focus of her fear, not beyond the instinctive level. She was afraid of the emotions bubbling up inside her that the pain could bring out, she was afraid of its intensity not leaving her energy to maintain the elaborate walls that kept them at bay. I'm sorry, she thought, addressed at Leth. She wondered if he could or would hear her. She almost wasted what he had given her. Sudden acute awareness of her mortality, something she hadn't thought about since her fall, pierced her precious little heart, threatening to shatter it. She didn't realize how important to her was the fact that she had, in her mind, outlined the plan she believed Leth had for her and a memory of the emotions permeating her soul in his domain. The Ethaefal thought she would never be worthy of him in another life. Not again, he took her out of the cycle of life for a reason, she deeply believed that she couldn't thrive in the cycle, that her wisdom had to span further for her to overcome her vices. She was too weak to do it in one life, as evidenced by all of her previous lives. Perhaps the only reason she didn't crumble under all of that weight was that she was in her mortal seeming now, and while her knowledge translated, she couldn't recall the feelings of inadequacy she was contemplating with the intensity one could usually address their own past with.

To top it all off, she felt some affinity for this creature who just tried to murder her. It felt insulting, almost disgusting, that she would feel that way. How can one disrespect their own life in such a manner? And yet there was something in his worrying amber eyes that she couldn't help but find deserving of consolation and affection, despite wondering whether she was feverish to think such a thing. Her conclusion was that her mind was just trying to motivate her to appease the aggressor to prevent further aggression, and content with that explanation, she pushed her worries aside to deal with the things at hand.

She rested her free hand on the wound besides his, pressing it down. His pressure seems to have stopped the bleeding, or at least decreased it to the point of it not being noticeable. "I'm- It's not too bad," she reassured him. "I'm a bit afraid of moving, it's hard not to twist my abdomen at all, and I definitely shouldn't fly." Carrying an Akvatari was more trouble than it might have seemed to a panicked mind. Her wings made it difficult to hold her upper body weight, while her tail was slippery and difficult to grip, though this many hands could probably do it. "Do you have any idea where we are anyway?" Mauriel remembered that she got completely lost in the fog flying down here. If there were any Healers nearby perhaps she could suck it up while they got there, or perhaps they could even get to her.

Despite her arguably friendly approach, she did not take note of or accept any of the boy's apologies. She would not even contemplate such nonsense right now, aware of her emotional instability and the urgency of their predicament.

[Mauriel]

By an undue stroke of luck for the two careless individuals, dusk was setting in, dark clouds not being the only reason behind the darkening sky. Leth was not visible, hidden from mortals by the mist that surrounded them and clouds that blocked his rays, yet his presence was unequivocally communicated by the form Mauriel's body had taken. She grew slightly taller in the boys hands, though the wound was seemingly unaffected by this. The usual shift from her slightly tanned complexion wasn't as noticeable as her skin turned to its nightly pale, as it had already lost a lot of its color. Her wings and tail were replaced with a pair of green horns and a pair of lean legs, her hair grew darker and her face plumped up.

But perhaps even more miraculously - as the young Ethaefal considered her every transformation a miracle - she suddenly felt an urge to do something with the hand she was touching her wound with. She was unsure of what she did, it came to her as natural as a flap of her wings or fur of her brows, but she gently touched the wound, which promptly clotted up completely. It was clearly not completely clean, yellowish parts mixed up with the red, but the bleeding had ceased instantly and the pain had changed from the piercing fire to a sort of an annoying pinch. She scrubbed off some of the dry blood from under the wound, tearing her shirt away from it. The wound aged. A part of her shirt seemed to be stuck in it. "Could you hold this really tightly?" she asked, offering that bit of the shirt. With his help, she'd tear it away from the rest of her clothes, so it wouldn't pull at the wound and reopen it.

"I have no more idea how I did that than you do, by the way. Or do you? I'm a Lethaefal, as you can probably tell, but I'm clearly not yet fully informed on what that entails."

"Bring Rage," she said after giving him a chance to respond, the offer of a healer still fresh in her mind. Furious with the dagger, she thought she surely won't leave him lying around to be found by somebody he found exciting. No, she'll have to get an ordinary dagger for protection, and the damned thing will spend its miserable existence listening to her unfinished songs.

As she looked at the confused and worried multi-armed man for help standing up, she realized this wasn't going to work that easily. "What are you going to tell them?" she asked. The last thing Mauriel needed was him panicking and running off because he didn't think this through, leaving her on the street somewhere to fend for herself. "How's your neck?" she asked, realizing she wasn't the only one wounded. Unlike the boy, however, she did not apologize.