[Flashback]Burial Rites Reversed[Wrenmae and Corpus]

[Corpus Aeternum]

Time Stamp :: 43rd of Fall 508AV This body was just laid to rest just a few chimes ago; it was going to be beautiful specimen to look at. The anticipation was beginning to be two much for Corpus. Dropping the reins of his sled to the ground and grabbing his spade the Nuit made a cursory look around. Good, not a soul around to disturb me. It was going to be an easy night for him then. Shoving the spade’s pointed tip into the ground with a grunt the Nuit’s first spadeful of dirt came up with more effort than he expected. “Blasted keepers!” Corpus growled loudly as he reset his body into position and once more shoved the spade into the ground. He paused though, the cemetery gate creaked… Or he thought at least. No other sounds came from that end of the hallowed grounds. It was with a shrug that he returned to his digging. The crime he was committing was one of the utmost care to his studies and Corpus would be damned if he couldn’t retrieve his specimen. With every spadeful of dirt removed Corpus was getting even more excited! He was about to embark on a journey he was hoping would end just as nicely as it began. The Ancient Nuit was getting tired after only digging a one-foot by three-foot wide hole that was only six-inches or so deep. Being only a corpse himself in all reality Corpus wasn’t exactly pleased with his results thus far. Leaning against his spade’s handle he heard yet another creaking item, this time a tree branch, this caused his body to tense upward, hands spread down the spade’s shaft as he lifted it in a poor attempt to use as a weapon. When nothing showed to his pounding black heart Corpus relaxed and went back to digging, scrapping at sod covered stones. “Bloody wind.”

[Wrenmae]

Life was a circle, any taleweaver worth his salt would know that. We begin from nothing and to nothing thus return. It was always spun in those cycles, shorter and longer lived races pointless in such a time of strife. No matter how noble or deplorable a life was lived, it all ended in the same result.

Death, it seemed, came to all.

Wrenmae had left the graveyard after his adoptive father and mother had been buried. Alric had offered a hand on his back, Seidaku was the always quiet and akward comfort in the background. Kit had appeared to pay her respects, and others...but they were gone now. The two graves were located besides each other, that spirits, should they linger, be bound together in death. Personally, Wrenmae found it morbid...even frightening. To see the sum total of their lives reduced to coffins and lumps of turned earth was sobering, too sobering perhaps.

Wrenmae had never clung to the illusion he'd live forever. His father was dead somewhere in the mountains, his sister and brother as well. He had brought them death then, slinking away with blessings from Vayt...but he had not put their bodies in the earth, had not said words over them. This was his first funeral, and the effect of the dead was cold in his blood.

He returned after the sun had set, flowers clutched tightly in one fist and tears holding themselves behind unblinking eyes. He had come, at last, to let go. The old man and his wife had been a family he could care for...had given him a place to lay his head. Between there and the Alric manor, it all felt like home.

He couldn't cry when they laid the bodies down. Then he had simply stared, uncomprehending. Death was one of those great mysteries the boy had never fully come to terms with...an end to the story, but to what end? What end? The accomplishments were little, the lives meager, and yet they had been content. Why then this rustling in his soul, this avoidance of a similar fate? Wrenmae was ill at ease in Alvadas now. Sickness came where he went and even the most foolish of the city had begun to understand what he was.

Staying here was not an option for much longer.

Part of him wished Vayt could come, instruct him, maybe lead him out of this madness and put him on a better path. As usual, however, the cigar-scented god was nowhere to be found.

Approaching the graveyard, he noted the door unlatched...a small oversight by the keeper of the graves, but a poor one. Wrenmae ignored it, slinking among the tilted namestones and seeking out the corner where his kin were moldering.

The sound of metal on dirt was what held him back, shadowed by a stone as he watched the thin figure laboring over the recently buried couple. A shovel rose, fell, rose, fell, the shifting of earth seemed to almost groan its reproach.

A desecrator, no doubt looking for what bits of wealth the dead had been buried with.

Rage boiled in the boy's blood, sending sudden frenzy to his feet as he charged the man and, with a roar, shouldered him off of the grave dirt.

The erratic motion pitched Wrenmae too far, and he rolled through the dust and chunks of old stone, crying out as his hand bent oddly under his thin body before he fell at a rest. Cradling the hand, he struggled for his feet, wildly looking for what he assumed would be a swift reprise.

"I'm not afraid of you!" he shouted at the night, grabbing for his dagger and pulling it out, "You will not touch these bodies while I live and breathe!"

[Corpus Aeternum]

Time Stamp :: 43rd of Fall 508AV It was the cry of a 'child' (in Corpus's eyes) and the shouldering that caused him to turn around and bring the spade up in a feeble attempt to protect himself. His training in Shielding completely skipping past his thought process. It was the last segment of the man's sentence that cause Corpus to smile, "That can be arranged child... Trust me." Event hough Corpus knew bloody well he was in new way shape or form capable of killing the man, who was clearly trained in something to do with the dagger he held. The next thing that caught his attention was the cradled hand, "Even more so considering the state your hand is in. Why not run away and leave me to my business? I am far too old to deal with this sort of rash actions." Corpus shoulder his way past the man and oncemore shoved the spade tip into the ground, his eyes focusing intently on the blade as an anchor point for his shield. He could feel the tug of his Djed yanking at his soul, beckoning to pull itself into existance as a barrier between Corpus and his assailant. The ancient Nuit knew what he wanted, a semi-visible a circular curved barrier between him and the man before him, the spade was the best location he could think of to start. Using what he knew the Nuit imagined a round slightly curved barrier centered on the spade to form. The tugging urge of his Djed to protect him became even greater as Corpus focused on what he wanted. It was this urge that he wanted to see come to life. It was soundless as his Djed flowed from his body into the spade and started to spread out in a shimmer circular form three feet in diameter between him and the youngin'. "Go on, remove thyself from my sight." OOC: Sorry for such a late response, been busy RLly

[Wrenmae]

There were rare moments in time where sheer rage overwhelmed the barriers Wrenmae placed around his survival instinct. He had not been raised in Sunberth, did not feel the call to act radically and tear the flesh from those that opposed him. Instead he grew to term in Alvadas, a place that fed off of alternate methodology and purpose pressed from years of knowing what from what and seeking the truth through illusion.

What may have been smarter would have been if the boy had left well enough alone, not opposing the adult that stood between him and the few strangers who had shown him kindness. Perhaps he could get someone to help, perhaps he could...

But there are only so many places one can go when rage takes hold. The haughty arrogance of the thin creature, the way he waved his arms, how he spoke, the sheer disregard for Wrenmae. That alone burned a conviction forged in flames deep within his ribs, forcing his heart to beat wildly that indescribable emotion he had never fully harnessed before.

He did not answer him...at least not in a traditional sense.

Instead he charged the Nuit, smashing fully into the shield erected between them and being repulsed, at least initially, falling backwards over a grave.

But give was not part of his emotional caveats. He could not allow this arrogant monster to desecrate his adopted parents...not after the kindness they had shown him, in spite of what he was...despite...the fact he'd driven them to this prison of soil.

Jumping to his feet, Wrenmae used the gravestone as leverage and hurled himself over the shield, dagger extended out to seek a home in the nuit's flesh. He did not speak, did not order, only howled with the kind of rage found in the downtrodden hearts attacked one too many times.

Here was sheer fury.

Here was Wrenmae.

[Corpus Aeternum]

The response Corpus got shocked him. It shocked him even more when the 'child' smashed into his shield and bounced away, this also forced Corpus to fall over and land on his backside, staring up at the sky that was quickly hidden behind the leaping figure of his assailant with dagger poised.

There wasn't any time to react properly all the Nuit had time to do was pulls his spade closer to his body and hope his shield was going to survive, it wasn't very strong Corpus could tell that much, one more blow from younger man's body and it was going to crumble, with his right hand the ancient Nuit reached backwards towards his hammer, it wasn't exactly a combat weapon, but he knew in his heart he didn't have any chance other than his blasted hammer. The nuit wasn't even armed with a bloody knife!

[Wrenmae]

There was resistance, slight, before something invisible cracked beneath his pressure and Wrenmae fell forward, smashing the nuit into the ground, dagger out. It caught the dirt, spinning away, but Wrenmae cared little of daggers and careful combat. He was fury, fists and fists, raining down on the Nuit. Balled together and beating on his face, body, anything that moved. The flesh was cold to the touch, almost painfully cold, disturbingly, but the youth was far from the point of understanding. He brought both hands together, smashing them down a the nuit even as the creature pulled out his hammer and lashed at Wrenmae, driving the boy off of him. Taking a blow to the head, he rolled away across the uneven ground and came up spitting, furious. He growled, roared, as his fingers grew, nails twisting into claws, long, sharp and black. "I'll KILL YOU!" He snarled, charging at the Nuit again, claws scything the air in front of him.

[Corpus Aeternum]

The clawing man-child was raving mad and Corpus currently really gather his wits around how to control the poor fool, his first shield, as temporary as it was, was rather draining and Corpus had a feeling he knew it wasn't going to be in his benefit to try and cast another one, this time around the man attacking him.

"You honestly want to relax child." Stepping back from the grave, lowering his hands to his sides as if to show a peaceful calm about him. "I am only here trying to do research, nothing more..." The nuit dropped his hammer and body to the ground as a hand swiped close to his face.

The cry of murderous intent was rather deafening and Corpus hoped to the gods that he would be able to get out of this mess alive, or at the very least with the ability to get a new body real soon.

It was going to take a long shot, but hoping that the man was still confused about the disappearance of his target in his frontal view Corpus lashed out with his hammer against the man's ankles.

If he was successful, well, that'd be good for him. If not, well... Corpus had a feeling he'd be bleeding ichor soon enough.

[Wrenmae]

The blow came to Wrenmae's ankles with sudden blinding pain. He keeled over, claws scything at the skin of his legs and immediately gone, reverting back towards fingers and nails once more. Wrenmae howled, his mind a furious cauldron of bubbling emotions and desperation. Just research. RESEARCH. He was no mere grave robber, he had been digging up his guardians for some sick experiment! Snatching at the dagger that lay a ways away in the grass, Wrenmae drew himself up again, bleeding and wobbly, approaching the nuit again wielding the blade. It was not his intention to kill the fellow. Beat him, yes, frighten him, yes, but never murder him. But he pitched headlong towards the nuit as he tripped across uneven ground and unyielding gravestones. He tipped forward, blade catching the air and dropping with a sudden velocity, burying just above the nuit's heart. The moment froze and Wrenmae yanked the blade from his body, falling back over himself with sickening revulsion. He'd killed a man, murdered him...certainly he hadn't deserved that kind of fate, never that. But there was no blood that welled from the narrow wound, only a white liquid...and the man seemed only...annoyed? Clutching the dagger to his chest, Wrenmae put his back against a gravestone, eyes wide. "What...what are you?" He whispered, obviously petrified.

[Corpus Aeternum]

Corpus stared at the gapping wound in his chest and sighed, placing a hand on his chest to stop the flow of ichor, which wasn't an easy task. He waited calmly as the flow finally stopped and the Nuit gasped a little in discomfort.

"You foolish child. Honestly? I am just an alchemist doing research." Is all the ancient being said to the man's question of what he was. The Nuit placed a hand against his spade and picked it back up, "Now are you going to attack me again or allow me to unbury what I came for and be on my way?"

It wasn't an answer he waited for as Corpus once more resumed his digging of the gravesites.

Children. Corpus chuckled amusingly to himself.

[Wrenmae]

Rage seeped away from him, ran off his body in rivers. It was replaced with a sort of curious fear, a determination tinted with trepidation. This creature was not alive. Standing and taking his dagger, Wrenmae reached into himself and pulled a line of Djed creeping over his mind, seeping through his eyes, boiling within him. "Are you so sure about using that shovel?" Wrenmae asked, stepping forward, speaking through the blood pouring from a busted lip, even his step wobbled from the blow to the head, "Seems to me that you've chosen poorly, that shovel is aflame." Through his voice he transmitted the flash of hypnotism, coiling words that burned in the Nuit's mind and showed him the shovel, suddenly caught ablaze with gnawing and rising fire. It caught against his clothes for a moment, clawed at him, and continued up the handle toward his hand. At the same time, he pooled Res into his one good hand, coating his palm and when the gravedigger no doubt loosened his grip on the shovel of the sudden shock his hypnotism provided, Wrenmae would bring that palm up, level it at the shovel, and ignite the Djed in a blast of wind to blow it away from his hand. If it worked...and even if it didn't, Wrenmae staggered closer, menacing the nuit with his blade again. "I don't care," he spit, "These aren't your bodies to take. They have mourners, they have people who want their death to be in peace. Find another body or I'll scream until help arrives. I don't think you want to deal with those who take offense to grave robbers."