That Farm (Open)

by **Asara Willow** on June 29th, 2011, 7:23 pm

Asara released his face after a few moments, her curiousity subdued for but a few moments. He really was a beautiful creature and, vain creature that she was, she felt a twinge of envy that she immediately smothered. And then, Ianus closed his eyes and her hand once again rose to brush along his forehead. She tried to keep her touch impersonal but she just couldn't help but be gentle with him. His skin was pearlescent almost, and soft.

"This transformation is not painful, then? It does not scar your mind to transform?" She blurted this softly in Symenos as he urged her to sit. She almost and then her eyes narrowed as she remembered her horse was waiting. "You have a horse, yes? Is it female? In heat? My horse will be getting impatient soon..." She smiled faintly, her horse's name on her tongue.

As Ianus explained his origins, Asara felt another flash of envy. He wouldn't suffer dirty looks or cold whispers at the loveliest time of night. People would probably fall over themselves to get close to someone of such divine beauty. The fact that he was Savere in the time of Syna was irrelevant. The Symenestra would be forgotten the moment some human set eyes on Ianus' ethereal form.

"You used to live with Leth himself?" Incredulity coloured her voice. She had know knowledge of such a thing, but if it were true and Ianus did fall from Leth's side, than she could feel some form of compassion for him. It had to have been terrible to have been in a divine world one moment and trapped on the prison of Mizahar the next. I know a bit about magic, most of it about Reimancy... I've not mastered the art of reading Common text, although I've had someone help me, or else I'd probably be able to identify Morphing correctly."

Asara felt no embarrassment at her weakness in Common literature. In all honesty, she didn't care for Common. It was something she awoke knowing and utilized mostly in Syliras.

by **Ianus** on July 26th, 2011, 6:46 pm

What an interesting idea. Ianus let his fingers brush the earth and stroke batches of grass, following the trail of his thoughts. Why hadn’t the possibility invaded his mind earlier? His features hardened as if putting on a mask. “No”, he answered, and nothing more. Yet, the total darkness of doubt obscured the word, extinguished it. No. Certainty was a precious luxury he didn’t claim for himself. He wasn’t so vain.

When she inquired about Leth, he tried to remember. A mortal body, albeit polished and not unlike his Lord’s appearance on the night sky, and a mortal brain held him back. Silver eyes reflected the moonlight when he locked gazes with the white orb in the distance. “With Leth... You call it the Ukalas”, he eventually said, with difficulty.

Would someone like Asara truly understand? Oh, he knew the answer! Yet, he yearned for someone to drink in the words he vomited, an empty vase he could fill with matter that was his. A lump of clay he could etch his nightmares into, probably. He sighed, annoyance dripping from the sound.

And then he leaned forward, reds and greens dancing in front of his eyes. Her aura was made up of dots that seemed to laugh at him with mocking sounds. She knew magic, a form of magic he had no experience with. None at all. The tinge of novelty, a possibility, flashed through his veins, sizzling through his djed. The colors exploded. He had to close his eyes again and listened to the burning behind the lids. When he opened them, Asara’s face trembled in crimson and burgundy. “Show it to me, Asara. Here and now.”

His voice demanded. She would obey, she had to!

by **Asara Willow** on July 26th, 2011, 7:14 pm

Gold eyes narrowed at the unfamiliar word, the name she'd not heard mentioned by anyone until this moment. The Ukalas. It must have been a beautiful, heartbreaking place to spawn such creatures like this one. Her mind couldn't fathom it. She was mortal and frail, her mind bruised by some form of forgotten punishment that left her stranded and alone, broken even, in the Wildlands she now sat in with a creature she both envied and pitied. What she wouldn't do to escape her own mortal form and transcend to another reality.

The Symenestra leaned back from him, the gold in her eyes hooded behind distant thoughts as she tried to imagine what Ianus could have lived like. She just couldn't, and Sitana in her head was getting aggravated that she should want to be something other than the spider she was. She didn't like Sitana for resenting her desire to be something else. How many humans had hurt her now? How many watched her with suspicion in their eyes and anger tucked away at some sin a Symenestra had committed to the women in their family.

Ianus' demand to show him her reimancy caught her completely off guard. She looked at him, her long fingers clenching. The one finger broken by a careless human male twinged in discomfort, but at least it didn't ache like her shoulder or ribs did. His command frightened her. She bit back a disgruntled hiss that would show her fangs and swallowed nervously. If she disobeyed, he could hurt her too. He was undoubtly less fragile in this form, and those horns looked like great weapons.

So, Asara obeyed, looking away from the male and lowering her golden eyes. She focused inward, inhaling a deep breath and then exhaling slowly, expelling res before her lips in the form of what could have been frost, except for the fact that it wasn't cold and the mist didn't sink or rise and disappear into nothing. Asara's topaz gaze slid along the small amount of res mist, and she furrowed her brow in concentration, summoning air to the small blob. The clothes of both Asara and her unexpected companion whipped as air rushed by them, drawn to the ball, and then winding away again, expelled.

Suddenly, Asara stopped it, and allowed her res to decompose, feeling greatly exhausted after her showy performance with reimancy. She leaned forward slightly, her eyes drifting shut as she caught the breath she had held. Eventually, she looked back up at Ianus.

"Is that good?" She muttered quietly, her Symenos muddled.

by **Ianus** on July 27th, 2011, 12:42 pm

Red bled into violet and poisonous green. Fear spilled all over her aura, fear of his voice and the things he could do to her if she refused. Ianus drank it all in, swallowed her emotions whole and let them run through his veins. He felt refreshed, as if walking under a waterfall. Along with the light of his Lord, this was what he craved, what kept him alive in a fallen world! Her colors beckoned him, and he reached out and collected them into his mind. Asara wouldn’t be forgotten.

He smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching, distorting the face her fingers had touched moments before. The impression lingered, of course, since it had left footprints on his aura.

And then she gathered substance inside her body, some sort of turquoise energy, pushed it through her mouth and willed it into a ball. It hovered between them, blowing wind all over their clothing and tousling their hair, intertwining black and white. The Ethaefal watched, his eyes forming large pools of silver as he took the colors in. Turquoise, of a luminescent quality he had never seen before, and ice blue as she expelled the substance of her body. It was a form of djed, just like the substance that made his eyes burn. And as she leaned forward, supposedly with exhaustion, he closed them again.

With eyes still closed, he said: “Good? Fabulous, magnificent.” His hands twitched in his lap as he gritted his teeth. Once the colors had covered him, formed his mind, it was hard to let go. So incredibly hard to leave the world of light and knowledge! But he willed the djed to vanish from his eyes, to take from them with the second sight he needed so much. Not this time.

Drops of blood shimmered in the corners of his eyes as he opened them. The light seemed dim without the vivid addition of auras, and he could barely see Asara’s face glowing in the twilight. Behind her, Leth looked at him with His white eye. Ianus leaned back, folded his arms around his torso. Suddenly he shivered, although the warmth of the previous day had followed them into the night. Asara might be the key to his insanity, but he didn’t care.

“How do you do it? Teach me. Please.” This time, his voice sounded pathetic, and he knew it. Mizahar was nothing, and he was less than nothing. Magic helped him forget. Eternity for oblivion, he thought and smiled again.

by **Asara Willow** on July 27th, 2011, 6:53 pm

Asara smiled faintly at the words, and straightened, gold eyes looking into silver before those silver pools, which were so like to the silver orb the man called his father, closed off from her. When they reopened, Asara was surprised to find droplets of blood beading the corners of his eyes, and once again without permission, she reached out and stroked away the tiny droplets, bringing them to her lips and tasting them before another small smile curved her pale lips. She lowered her hand, stretching her long, thin fingers, and watched Ianus curiously. He had bled out of his eyes. She wanted to know why.

"Why were you bleeding? Is there some disease in your eyes?" She asked quietly, her breath regained after her use of res. The next demands had her breath hitch, and she lowered her head. He may have thought he sounded pathetic, but she was beginning to think he was desperate for something new in his life. She felt so much pity for him and the desperation in his wonderful voice, but she couldn't give him what he wanted.

Lacing her long white fingers together to stop them from wandering over his divine features, Asara ate his appearance hungrily. Never in her life, or what she remembered of it, had she found a person as lovely as this man. Just looking at him would be enough to break hearts, but his voice was even more beautiful, and smooth like chocolate. She wouldn't admit this if asked, but she really liked this creature, who shared a race with her in Syna's light, but who became something greater at night, under Leth.

" Reimancy is an energy passed between people, one of whom knows the art very well. I'm too weak to teach you, Ianus... I'd kill us both." She said, even quieter than before. "I'd have to give part of myself to you for you to be able to learn Reimancy, but I can't do that, especially now." She expected his anger for her words, and she waited with bated breath for him to hurt her, with words or actions. The comfort she had felt with him earlier, although unnatural, was smothered under her discomfort and fear. She'd been hurt for far less than disobedience before.

by **Ianus** on August 3rd, 2011, 4:13 pm

Once again, he didn’t react to her touch. But there undoubtedly was pleasure, buried under heaps of ignorance. After she had removed the blood and licked it from her lips, her fingers still burned on his skin. How long has it been...? He didn’t want to think about the Ukalas. Even though he was Ethaefal, he didn’t want to return. Wanted to forget and escape, if only for the fraction of a moment. Living in complete and utter oblivion, darkness, wouldn’t that be the greatest joy of a mortal such as he was? No colors, no voices whispering sweet promises in his ears. Hell all over again, he thought, remembering the divine fissure.

Averting his gaze, he stayed silent. Disease? It probably was. Even if not, one could still call it a disease if one was poetically inclined. There were so many things in the world, and they went by countless names. The colors always spoke the truth, more than the words. Therefore, the Ethaefal refrained from answering.

Then she lowered her head, foreshadowing her answer. Ianus withdrew immediately. His arms tightened around his torso. Fabric only did so much to keep a body warm, but the chill he felt wasn’t due to temperatures or weather. Almost as if there was a hole inside him and wind blowing through it. Nothing he could do about it, but the djed flow and the colors burning into his eyes helped him forgot most of the time. Now, with the temptation gone, everything seemed dull, melting into each other in twilight. Not of interest. And she had refused to teach him. What was left? Every day he waited, waited for the image of his Lord to appear, to console him at least a little, felt the djed pushing adrenaline through his veins, but then it wasn’t enough. Again and again. It was so pathetic that he felt the urge to laugh at himself.

Why didn’t Asara see it too? Her excuses sucked the energy out of his body. Everything he managed to say was: “What do you mean, especially now? How did you learn it? When will you be good enough?” Planning ahead wasn’t his forte, had never been. However, the tenderness her hands had etched into his aura still lingered. Playing the scene over and over in his head relit the curiosity he had regarded her with before. Straightening, he returned to observing her. Odd.

by **Asara Willow** on August 5th, 2011, 9:04 am

Asara watched him withdraw, wondering if she had angered him enough to leave her. She couldn't give him what he wanted without overgiving or killing him. She wouldn't accept killing such a beautiful creature. It would be a sin too great to be healed from, and Leth would probably never forgive her. She'd never forgive herself. How could she?

"I've used most of my res, and to make you a reimancer, I'd have to give it all to you, and then withdraw... I was given it from someone I don't remember, but I know how to pass it on. We would die... Tomorrow, if I am strong enough, it may work." She had to offer him that. The possibility. Even if she wasn't ready, she had to give him something. Death was but a little thing to her now. And, if it succeeded, a small bit of her would have become part of him, to be used and expelled for whatever element he chose. Hopefully, he wouldn't kill himself or forget her after he went wherever he desired and she wandered. At least, if they succeeded, she'd have something wonderful to imagine. She wouldn't have ever forgotten him, but she'd remember him easier. Excruciating pain was helpful.

Her golden eyes flashed up to his silver ones again. The nature of their appearances finally caught up to her. They contrasted eachother. Black to white, silver to gold. The horns were something she had no way to compete with, however. The texture of them was amazing. Her fingers ached to touch them again. But then, she noticed how he looked at her, and she squirmed a bit, fighting down the need to touch something that lovely.

"Do I look funny?" She asked quietly, feeling a little awkward under his observing gaze. She smirked a little eventually at her superficial question. Of course she did! She was Symenestra! Fangs, nails, skin, proportions, it all was "funny" in appearance!