Dierdre and the Svelte (Sura)

[Panna Cotta]

Your timestamp This particular day unfolded slowly - the black lining of the night slowly raising to reveal the outline of a few trees in the distance, the fog slowly thinning out to expose the canopies. Within the stillness, a cacophony of sounds stirred the morn. Birds chirped, shadows moved, leaves danced in the gentle breeze. Above the grey skies, a flock of birds flew through the vibrant pink, red, and orange. Syna was still in her bed, sleeping. Perhaps on this day she chose to laze a little and place the breaking of dawn on snooze. The delay did not affect the rest of the Syliran wildlands. One corner of the wilds was restless, as it had been for a few nights now. It had been having trouble with sleeping because of a visitor. The foreigner was no manner of beast, savage or otherwise, though the smaller animals cowered in its presence and the trees found her unwelcome. It had been probing through the woods, scouring and searching. The creature was a small lithe figure of midnight blue and pristine white hair. Its almond-shapes eyes beamed pale gray eyes. Though appearing to be feminine, with a shapely body painted with white strips and long flowing hair, it possessed no gender. At first glance it could be mistaken for an Akontak, though it was far from being such. It possessed four arms and two long legs, all limbs traveling the lands. It could be running, if only its feet did not touch the ground. At a distance, a traveler was going about her own life, unaware of the approaching creature in the distance. Sleep had been disturbed by the hallowed moans of an unknown creature, and the repeating whinges can no longer be ignored. Outside, an ethereal four-legged creature dashed forward, towards the traveler's camp. It was limping and was heavily wounded, and in the last vestiges of its strength it skidded forward, knees unable to support its weight, collapsing because of fatigue and impending death. Perhaps most striking about its appearance were the antlers, velvety silver - if only they were not stained with blood. The creature cried its last breath and died upon the feet of the traveler. Meanwhile, the midnight creature glided, eyes conveying no remorse nor pity. The creature it was looking for was dead. They were both out of place in Syliras, and they both needed to return to the alien world where they belonged to. The midnight woman gave a sultry stare to the traveler. Eyes intense, movements fluid. In one fell sweep she reached for the dead creature. The carcass disappeared in a puff of gray mist, leaving nothing but the remnants of its skull and antlers. This, the midnight creature picked up, held against her chest. It then held an accusing stare against Sura.

[Sura]

[511AV 9th day of spring]

Sura had chose to lie in her tent far beyond her usual rising hour. She'd ignored the encroaching daylight, but the increasingly boisterous chorus of song birds was becoming ever more challenging to push from her mind. Her unsettled blue gaze was fixed atop her tent as she rested perfectly still on her back, the thin pale fingers of her clasped hands weaving into one another over her stomach. She was turning over the idea of heading home, not to Syliras where she'd spent the past few months lingering, but to The White Isle in all its lustrous glory. Having seen what she had of the world beyond the waters, she felt a fool for ever having left what she now regarded as tantamount to pearly paradise.

"I should have settled on being a mason." She scolded herself inwardly. "Built monuments that would stand the trials of ages rather then entertain childish notions of personal fulfillment. Selfish. Stupid."

The idea to head to the city of knights had been planted long ago in her young impressionable imagination, in hearing the stories of her kin that had ventured inland to provide council to individuals of legendary character and importance. She had dreamed to find such purpose, but her course toward prized advisory had been more meandering and tumultuous then anticipated. A blood curdling sound cut through the daze of her still introspection. It was a sound of suffering.

Suddenly sobered and fully awake, Sura tentatively moved to her knees, taking her Suvai in hand. Squinting into the light pouring over her camp, she carefully pealed back the flap of her tent. She looked just in time to see the agonized collapse of a beast unlike anything she'd ever seen. Uncertain but overcome with curiosity, the wayward konti crept from her her tent, the tiny curved blade of her people held at her side. It was a surreal sight: the strange beast stained in crimson struggling for its final breaths in the center of her unremarkable and tidy camp. Sura surveyed the creature at her small bare feet, pity swelling in the pits of her stomach. She was hungry, stretching her last stores of rice, but the thought of killing the unworldly animal and consuming it never crossed her mind. Her konti sensibilities held life as sacred, and this one seemed especially so.

She was stricken with a desire to save the beast, but even with the most fleeting assessment of its wounds, knew this to be beyond her novice skill. Sura was as incapable of sparing this life as she was bringing a new one into the world, and that realization filled her chest with retched helplessness. It was all she could do to watch as life drained from its eyes. Her round, youthful features twisted with remorse and her shoulders slumped, crestfallen.

Her forlorn pensive gaze sharpened and widened as she cast her eyes upward to see yet another interloper to her camp. Her breath stilled in her lungs as she surveyed the dark flesh in its distinctive hue and the powerful eyes and brilliant white hair which sat against it in stark, startling contrast. Beautiful and terrifying, Sura's gaze trailed the effeminate creature as if entranced at its enviable purposeful grace. She felt inappropriately plain with her wild sleep skewed hair and knee length navy sleeping gown in need of mending, as if she'd stumbled into the presence of royalty in dirty pajamas.

Her passive surveillance snapped when, at the touch of the midnight creature, the corpse of the wounded animal all but disappeared. Sura took an involuntary step backward in surprise, but remained facing the blue woman. The gesture with the skull was beyond Sura's understanding, as was the guilt inspiring glare of the creature. As if in search of answers, Sura's gaze dropped to the suvai in her hand. Was she being presented with the animal's remains as evidence of some suspected crime? She finally broke the taut silence with a quiet murmur.

"I did not wound the creature." was all she could think to say. She spoke in common out of recent habit, even if the stranger to her camp was unlike any common speaking creature she'd yet to encounter.

[Panna Cotta]

OOCI was away for the Holy Week. I'm sorry for the prolonged absence ;(

With her big eyes, the midnight creature was able to convey more emotion than one would allow. There was something emphatic about the gaze, curiously tuning from accusation into acknowledgement. There was something to be said for the way it could understand Sura, and make Sura understand its thoughts, feelings. Though empathy was rather a limited word for the midnight creature's ability. Maybe it was Sura's Sight, her blessing from Avalis, that allowed her to fully commune with the midnight creature. Their eyes drank from one another, telling stories, asking questions.

It was a novel feeling, though not exactly foreign to Sura. She had never sustained a powerful gaze. There was a knot forming in the back of her mind, images, knowledge. It almost felt like she was being invaded, fed information. But try as she might, her Sight would not let go. Almost as if she was being compelled by the midnight creature to watch, to listen, to feel.

The creature was alive when it was pulled into Mizahar, no doubt the workings of magic known better as Summoning. Sura glimpsed bits of farfetched ideas they only dreamed about in Mura. Somewhere far away, other beings existed in other worlds. This meeting was a confirmation of that fact. The midnight creature was not from this world, and had no want to be here. Some mage had been playing magician out in the wilds, ripping worlds with their portals and sending inhabitants away from their home world.

In her head, she received the knowledge from the midnight creature told her that the mount was the only way back to the world where it came from, out there, far far away. But it is now gone, lost, hunted, killed. And there was no way back home.

But.

But Sura can help.

The big beady eyes closed in sorrowful weeping.

Perhaps it was still uncanny how she felt like she was being persuaded by the midnight creature to help - something about the death of the mount and the skull that was left of it inspired pity, loss, loneliness.

In an instant, an emotion surged above all else. Anger, boiling anger against the inhabitants of Mizahar. Many mounts have been lost because of mages who dabble in the art of Summoning. They who think that it is their god-given right to pull creatures out from a magician's hat! What about those who are pulled into the world against their want? What about those who are left behind? Was Sura such a being?

The accusing look was there once again. Sura could try to talk to the midnight creature, offer help if she found it in her heart to be generous. There was no need for words. Although, she would have to exert herself a little bit, as the power of the midnight creature was exactly the opposite of her own. If she could emphatize by locking with someone else's eyes - which made it easier for the midnight creature to express itself, what would it be like doing the opposite? Sura felt like she was standing at the edge of the cliff, heart filled and bursting. What did the midnight creature want from her, and what could she possibly offer?

The thought of regretting leaving Mura crossed her mind, but she was also being invaded by a sense of duty. The midnight creature, though smaller than her, imposed with the big eyes. It said, "Look, look at my mount, now dead." While Sura was not exactly ambassador of Mizahar to foreign magical creatures, the burden to explain, to make reparations, was now upon her shoulders.