Betrayal for the Second Time

[Jh'eon]

Season of Summer, Day 19, 513 AV

Jh'eon sighed. He was in Riverfall and he watched the river flow, leading into a waterfall. It was true that the world's most beautiful rivers flowed here. Jh'eon looked around. It was quiet here. Unusual for this place. Then he stood up and - - Jh'eon stood in a place. It looked oddly like the Sea of Grass - yet it wasn't. He looked around him. It felt cold. Grey clouds were clouding the sky. He was alone. Jh'eon murmured in Char. "Where am I..." He walked around further and called. "Hello? Anybody here?" Then he heard a rustle and he turned around, and then saw a statue of a man. He stared at it carefully, and in a blink, the man was a Charoda. His father. Then it turned its head and spoke to him. "You betrayed us...you are a disgrace to the name of this family!" Jh'eon turned around and ran - - into Riverfall. He was running through the streets and looked at his house, then gasped. It was not there. Instead - it was in ruins. He turned and saw Glassbeaks flying through the sky, swooping down on him. Glassbeaks couldn't fly? What was going on? He was so confused. He closed his eyes then felt him land in water. He opened his eyes in Charbosi. He was four. And he looked up and gasped as rebel Charodae marched and his mother and two of his sisters were trying to get them off. Jh'eon screamed and ran forwards. "Don't touch them..." And he was grabbed by his father and he struggled. "LET THEM GO!" He was screaming and struggling against his father's grip and heard words echo in his head. You betrayed them... Then he saw he was on an island in the middle of the water in the Sea of Grass. He had been there before. He called out loud. "Hello? Is anybody there?" And then he looked beyond the water and saw his sister Ole'ah, tears trickling down her cheeks, arms spread out. Jh'eon screamed. "NO!" Ole'ah whispered. "It is destiny. We all must die." Jh'eon struggled by an unseen force. "Ole'ah!" Then a sword went through her and a man stood there laughing. Jh'eon went silent. He couldn't move. Then the man vanished and Jh'eon collapsed. He did not know what to do. "I betrayed you...for the second time..."

[Jh'eon]

Jh'eon gasped for breath, and crawled on the ground, speechless. Everything had been - so fast. So quick. It was stuck in his mind. The Glassbeaks - he had been chased by them. The island - he had been there once. His mother and two of his sisters had been murdered brutally. He had betrayed them once - after his father's death he left his remaining brother and sister, Dey'eon (his brother) and Ole'ah (his sister) and exiled himself for a year. He looked up and he was in a hall, leading to - beyond. It was a never-ending hall. He looked and as quick as the hall had appeared around him, two tables, stretching the length of the hall, appeared on either side of him. Each held a row of glasses. Jh'eon felt thirsty, so he picked up a glass and sipped it. The tables and glasses vanished, except for the glass in his hand. Then he looked at it and yelped as the water turned to blood. He dropped it, and the glass shattered. Blood poured across the floor, trickling. He turned and was running through a forest. He tripped on a twig, and fell. He stood up carefully and called. "Hello? Is anybody here? Reveal yourselves! I beg you!"

[Una Tanta]

Stooped in the shadows cast by the coral Una peered out, the moonlight reflecting off her beluga white skin making her glow faintly. Her headdress covered most of her tentacles but the ends reached out feeling the water and cave edge for vibrations. Senses alert Una crawled from the cave stomach skimming the edge of the coral. The creature had been hunting her all night, stalking her through her dream sea. A flash of white in her periphery and she was darting toward the seas roof, the creature snapping at her heels. She could feel the bubbles rising around her as she broke the surface, her body rising on the gusts the creature behind her fell back into the waves as she rose toward the moon. "Cy..." She sighed, his windy wings wrapping around her. Soaring through the sky, spinning in lazy circles, she ran her fingertips along the underside of the clouds. A high-pitch scream shattered the clouds sending them curling in upon themselves until the sky was clear. The moons mouth was parted, and pieces of it rained down on Una. Slapped by the little shards Cys grip on her loosened and she began to fall. Legs hit by a large comet of stone she felt the snap before she was swallowed whole. The moons mouth encircled her as it smashed into the earth. The sea reacted violently, its guiding force destroyed. Beating her fists against the walls of the moon till she had scraped the rubbery surface off and the blood ran Una screamed, "Help! Help me!" Cy had let her down, he had died in her dream as he had died in life, and had left her alone. "Please Cy...Please don't leave me alone again..." Curling up in a ball, arms wrapped around her legs, weeping, "You said you would never leave me...you betrayed me." She whispered into her arms. Time stood still while she was inside the moon. Slowly a shard of light fell through the ceiling. Like a stone it lay on the floor illuminating her dark surroundings. Thinning the moon became a glass container revealing the forest outside. Awake, Una had never experienced a forest, and yet the tall trees were prevalent in her dreams like a ladder to the sky they provided a pathway for Cy. Gazing into the fern filled depths of the trees she saw the swans paddling through the leaves as if the trunks supported a green lake. Feet churning more and more gathered until the leaves disappeared behind a mask of white feathers. "Hello? Is anybody here? Reveal yourselves! I beg you!" The sound of Char, a language she had not heard in a year, echoed through the trees as if spoken at the entrance to a tunnel. "I'm here!" She called back, beating the transparent walls more vigorously, "Cy! I can't! Let me out!" She called, thinking the voice in the depths was her beloved.

[Jh'eon]

Jh'eon heard a call. "Cy! I can't! Let me out!" He ran through the forest and then his sister walked out from behind a tree and spoke in a hissing, spitting voice. "You...betrayed...us..." And she was gone. Jh'eon shook his head and continued running, then saw a hole and fell down it. He was twisting and turning through darkness and then he saw a massive hole in the ground coming for him. He fell through and landed in a dark place, with the only source of light being from through the hole he had just fallen. He saw a Charoda and blinked. "You?" Then he turned and saw his father, standing next to her. Jh'eon did not think the other Charoda who had called could see him but Jh'eon certainly could. Except unlike the other family members, this one was more like his father and peaceful. "You brave boy...my son..." Tears trickled down his face, and Jh'eon blinked. He was gone. Jh'eon stood up and spoke. "Who are you? Who is this Cy?" And he then turned around and then the hole in the roof grew bigger and bigger and more and more light got through. Then startlingly, the hole vanished and reappeared in front of them, a gateway to - clouds. Jh'eon murmured. "Clouds..." And he walked onto them and was startled he didn't fall. "What is this?" And then a hole opened in the clouds and then his brother floated out of it, penetrating his eyes into Jh'eon. This time Jh'eon thought that the other strange Charoda could see this one. Dey'eon smirked. "You. You are pathetic. You abandoned me - let me die. You weren't there. You abandoned me and Ole'ah. You are a disgrace. I hate you more than anything. Abandoned us for our father, exiled yourself for a year and let me die? You are no brother of mine...you are a disgrace." And he smiled and then he vanished. Jh'eon turned back to the hole. It was a hole in the moon! A moon lying on a cloud. "It is alright. Come on." He tried to tempt the other Charoda out when he then saw more Glassbeaks flying through the sky. He yelled and he was pulled into the moon by a mysterious force and the hole vanished as soon as he entered. Pitch black. Then a fire ignited, a ball of fire floating in the centre. And surrounding the ball, also floating in a circle, were glasses of blood. Jh'eon felt sick to the core.

[Una Tanta]

A figure cast a shadowy form across the light before thudding to the ground beside her. About to tackle the form in happiness Una was shattered by his question "Who are you? Who is this Cy?" It wasn't Cy. Slumping to the ground sobbing the tears pooled around her knees slowly melting her form. As the light filled their prison she felt her body lengthen and thin, the cartilage in her limbs becoming fog and her tentacles stretching out. Above her she could feel his footsteps on her legs. She hovered above the ground, a cloud, teaming and unable to control her movements the breeze pulled her apart. Mouthless, unable to scream, she began to writhe under the man turning stormy. She could see her body in the moon, paralyzed. It was her soul that had become the cloud. Panic made thrash harder, lightning thundering through her a physical representation of her emotions. Suddenly the man disappeared into the moon her body encircled. Tightening she tried to draw into herself, condense herself back into her body. Live again. As she did the moon shuddered under the pressure threatening to crack. Abdomen tensing, legs encircling, her body wrapped around the moon like it had wrapped around Cy. With relief she felt it enter her, and her it as she slipped, a foggy presence, into the dark center. The moon flapped its swan wings and swung through the air. The night was passing. Soon this nightmare would be over. She stared at the man before her, and overcome by desire crawled like a beast toward the glass eyes fixated on the man and opening her mouth slowly extended her tongue to touch the surface of the blood, feeling it crawl up her tongue in the form of a hand it entered her. Eye lolling back Una felt filled with power and lust, intoxicated by the unfamiliar scent and taste of blood she fell back away from one of the glasses sprawled on her back as it sank through her body washing her insides with its disturbing presence. Using only her arms, thoughtless and emotionless Una grasped at the mans legs pulling herself up him, and pulling him down toward her until her lips brushed his ear, "I failed someone too, I killed someone too. This glowing prison will never stop feeding me blood. I will drown." With a sigh she let go of the mans clothes and closing her eyes fell back to the rocky ground beneath her the blood choking her. She had felt like she was drowning only once before, and for days the sea had terrified her. Her home could kill her. But she was glad to die this time, filled with power and lust and life. OOCI am sorry my response took so long, I was moving into a new apartment and it took ridiculously long to get stable internet O-O