(17th of Summer, 511AV)
Zlakalia walked on the barren streets on her own. It was cold, but more a side effect of the icy street she ominously traversed across than the blazing sun just looking up over the horizon. The street had become ice nearly instantly, threatening to slip any new passenger that came upon it. The sun looked like it was burning the tops of buildings, trying to reach down and grab Zlakalia in its fiery grasp. Clouds also loomed to the east, as if to scurry over to the dying sun and devour it like jackals on a wounded lion. The weather was glorious, colorful and angry and tense. Just how Zlakalia felt.
The weather was just like this that day the gods abandoned her so many years ago. And the alley seemed the look just like the ones of Sunberth. The whole city seemed to be fighting to twist back the years in Zlakalia's mind and remind her of her own broken past. The only thing different was the inexplicable silence that filled this void. Each step became harder to take, like some force was trying to slow her path. Zlakalia looked down, her attention shaken out of her own head by a new threat. Somehow the street she was walking in had melted or flooded, water level raising quickly from her ankles up towards her waist. And before her the water seemed to torrent and deepen, threatening to wash even her large frame away.
Zlakalia's eyes widened as she attempted to run into a side alley. The water just delayed her escape attempt, however, pushing her back even as she pushed herself forward. She just wasn't strong enough to get through! The violent swell of water suddenly hit Zlakalia from behind like a boot, firm and shoving her back into the water and away from the open alley. She felt herself rubbed against the rocky ground below, water covering her and making her lose her sight. The pain was intense. The ground ripped up parts of her torso as she was violently dragged along.
Zlakalia wanted to scream, but of course her voice did not travel below the malicious surface of the tiny tsunami that covered this street. She reached out as she was forced along, just trying to grab hold of anything to save herself. Zlakalia would do anything to stop the momentum the water had forced upon her, to free herself from the prison she was stuck in. Finally her hand felt firm and twisted wood, the surface of a large crate. Zlakalia pulled herself up as quickly as she could, dragging herself up onto the wooden surface. She fell back onto her back, just taking a moment. That was when the full shunt of the pain reared up.
She looked down at her ragged torso, eying her wounds. Several pieces of her front had been skinned off her body, the long thin chunks scrapped off against the ground. Zlakalia cackled out in a haggard tone that revealed the effects of the burns on her body through her voice. She just laid still for a moment, her limbs twitching every so often as wave after wave of torture attacked her mind. Her screams soon stopped, her writhing now only left with the twitches beyond her control, and a sudden stillness gripped her. No sign of her pain remained from her actions. Except for the wide grin that now took up most of her face.
The pain awakened her. This wasn't some random coincidence. This was Gnora showing Zlakalia that she needed balance. The pain would balance her. Looking up at the darkening sky Zlakalia started to laugh even, a malicious roar in the night of the girl who knew her place and just had the lesson scornfully brought back to life. But she wasn't balanced yet, oh no! She needed more! She needed to be fully in balance, take away from the failure she'd been! A purification!
Zlakalia felt what she needed to begin. It was below her arm, exactly where it needed to be. A thin nail was stuck out of the wood about an inch or more, loosened from its wooden prison. Her hands wrapped around the rusted metal and began to pull it up slowly. It screeched against the wood as it moved inch by inch. Pale red dust flecked off the nail's rusty frame, bleeding out onto the wood. With a final pull the angry nail slipped free of its hold, gleaming an orange red in the evening. She laid the nail aside, now ready for its task.
The first step was the hardest. The pain made it harder to focus, clouded her mind. She felt her djed pulsing as well, seeming to flare with each flash of the sickening throb that wracked her. Zlakalia's mind was failing, fading, her eyesight seemed to leave her for an instant. 'This is weak. And I will prove it!' Her left arm laid still, the right hanging over it and casting the smallest shadow like a spider creeping up on its prey. Her long fingers seemed to sharpen. One of them was slightly damaged, nothing like the gashes in her chest, and the new small pain that came from the reshaping was not enough to distract her now.
Zlakalia's right hand began its dance, pulling and tearing at her djed to form a weak layer, a shield surrounding her still arm. The shape was forming, a layer like protrusion of her own djed. She could feel it warp as she worked, pushing it where it needed to go. Her djed flowed through her fingers as well, trying to cover any gaps she left open. It was a monstrous task; her wounds threatened to rob her concentration again and again as she worked. Zlakalia had to stop for a second, another scream escaping her as she laid still in agony. It took her a second to regain her concentration. 'I AM GOING TO PROVE IT!' Her own voice screamed in her head.
Zlakalia's free hand again pulled and scratched at the djed, shaping it further to make sure its form was as perfect as she could get it. It was so hard to get it right, she kept working like she would a clay part of herself. It was all about shaping, just getting it to look right. But it still didn't feel right. She punched at the shield, coming just short of her long fingernails hitting her own arm. It must have looked insane: a small pycon on a crate, laughing at the sky and attacking its own arm. She loved the idea. |
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by Zlakalia on August 9th, 2011, 7:37 am 
