Fill the Room with Nothingness[Flashback, Skillzz]

[Sairque]

1 Spring, 504 AV Midnight In the dim light of the bedchamber, candles flickering irately from their places interspersed along the walls, a long figure sat atop a stone chest. The chest was roughly as long as the figure was tall, and a hide with thick white fur covered it, draping over the edges, to cushion the seat. The figure faced the door, shut, and behind her was an enormous bed, also blanketed in white. Aside from those things, chest, bed, furs, and candles, the room was barren. The woman was also sparsely clothed; a strapless blue vinati displayed wide swaths of lean flesh and the voluminous folds of a pair of white bryda blended with the fur. Her bare feet poked out, two dainty points of color sandwiched between the pure materials. The figure moved as much as the individual points of flame. Her posture slackened, and with an annoyed twitch of the corner of her mouth and closed eyes, she thrust her chest forward, drawing her shoulders back at the same time. Small but strong hands gripped her folded legs at the knees, they could have rested but instead she held them there, arms and shoulders tense. Frustration was building in her spine, a hot spot between her shoulder blades that sent disruptive tendrils down strong arms and up the back of her neck. Jaw muscles clenched, teeth grinding together as though self control were a bit she could bite down on and attain. Air taken shallowly into her lungs was forced through her tightened windpipe noisily, rushing and whirling until liberating escape through nostrils. Eyebrows drawn tightly together, yellow eyes popped open and glared at the door; her lips pulled into a scowl and lower body fidgeted uncomfortably. Addy was having sex again. Intense lust and confidence poured through their connection, bathing the sexually stunted twin. Expanding lungs pulled air noisily in through her nostrils, and, at the exhale, the features of her face slackened. Eyelids drooped closed, jaw unclenched, even her lips parted slightly. Inhale. On the exhale, she pushed the relaxation further down her body; head tilted forward and shoulders drooped under the weight of gravity and arms. Inhale. Lungs compressed, air quietly escaped through a slackened throat taking with it the tautness of the arms draped over her knees. Without realizing it, peace had started trickling down her spine, using the material of her bones to travel and infuse her muscles. The little box of sexual frenzy retreated in her mind, coming to the forefront was the steady rhythm of compression and expansion in her chest. During expansion, she prepared for gravity to wash away the lightness of a region, during compression, she let the area accept the full weight of the atmosphere. Abruptly, electrical energy shot through her mind and it was all lost. Addy was disappointed, highly disappointed. Jaw muscles working furiously again, Sai glared at the door. Her fingers dug into bony knees again, shoulders painfully tight, frustration burning along every muscle and begging for a release. The flickering light suddenly shared the air with the sounds of a door opening and someone moving around the common area. The foot of a piece of furniture scraped against the stone floor. Sairque bounded to her feet, uncoiling like a viper and stepping off the chest without standing up fully. Her bare feet padded against the floor, the door swung open and closed silently, the brief flash of light illuminating the failed suitor standing by the couch, the muscular man disoriented further. Something between memory and physical movement warned her that the peach colored chair was in front of her. Adjusting course a few degrees to the right, sure enough her left hand skimmed over the back of it as she passed silently by. He was noisy, feeling around, bumping into things with outstretched hands and shins. The relief almost permeated the room when his hand found a door, the sudden silence causing Sai to stop, her leg against the couch for guidance, head tilted down, eyes staring through the pitch black, as she strained her ears. The door clicked shut, and Sai stepped onto the couch, letting her subconscious guide her hand to the back of the couch and her body over it toward the door behind it. Frustration sparked to anger, and it demanded release, he had entered Catabasis' nest. Coming through the doorway, she immediately felt the difference in air. This room was crisp, the floor and walls were cold, there was a general feeling of movement compared to the rest of the rooms. Sai strode forward, feet landing on plant remains and soft feathers. Catabasis suddenly flared in her mind, he was awake and aware of company. Immediately, he focused sharply on Sairque, determining that she was one of his visitors and understanding the volatile mentality was due to the one he could see bumbling along the far wall in search of the door again. He must have seen the stars and realized where he was. His movements were exaggeratively cautious, and Catabasis could see the fear that jerked him to stop every time he made a noise. The great Eagle screeched, simultaneously sweeping one wing out to push a great gust toward the invader. Sai also got caught in it, but she had known it was coming. The door suddenly jerked open and Addy popped her head in. "What's wrong?!" Concerned panic laced the healers tone. Sai didn't answer, Catabasis screeched again, this one aimed right at the man. He scrambled for Addy's voice, but received no solace from the woman who frankly told him that he deserved to fall off the edge for disturbing a Wind Eagle. After she apologized to the Eagle, Sai could hear the man getting berated even after the door had closed. She turned toward her bondmate and climbed into his nest with him. He didn't say anything, just settled back down with his companion. Both were asleep within minutes; one having understood the frustration fueling violent desires in the other and appeasing them, the appeased one free of all troubles in the wake of the cleansing actions of the first.

[Sairque]

2 Spring, 504 AV Catabasis, the strong fluid body beneath her, suddenly twisted, continuing to fly forward despite the impossible position his wings were now in. His head twitched this way and that, one yellow eye focused on her and then the other. “I’ll let you drink me under the table, if you’ll join me there…” The hard material of his beak flexed to shape the words like a human would. Sai, disturbed and disgusted, ran the other way. Her feet sank into the sand-like material of the clouds, Catabasis walked beside her, human-sized and wrapping a wing around her. “Come on, let’s dance,” his voice was smooth and cultured, something that belonged to an outsider, not a native of Wind Reach. His strong arm spun her out, her feet falling into an unfamiliar dance with grace until he met her and lead the sweeping gestures with the firm hand of a man used to leading women in dances they didn’t know. Sai glanced up from her velvet and silk gown and smiled into the aristocratic features of his face, they weaved in and out of the other couples. Abruptly, an elk burst through the crowd and scooped her up in his antlers; she reached back for her dance partner and wondered where the clouds had gone. The elk leapt from the side of the mountain and landed in a cold, glacially fed lake. A scowl on her face, she jerked up in bed. Perhaps the expression had been on her face as she slept, perhaps it had formed in much the same involuntary manner that her abs had set her upright. The dream was already fragmenting and leaving her with only a vague sense of disarray. Exultation quickly swamped the feeling and Sai searched for glimpses of the dream images that could explain this second feeling. The box, labeled ‘Addy’, was hopping and jumping in the back of her mind, utter enjoyment spilling forth from the corners and seeping across her own emotional landscape. Dimly, she heard voices in the main chamber. Aidara’s timbre was easy to pick out from the tangle of murmurs. Laughter pealed through the heavy closed door of her bedchamber. There were two other women out there, Sai was sure. Heaving a sigh, the young woman threw off the furs and lifted to her knees, twisting back to strike the flint until a spark caught the wick of a candle and, to her sleep adjusted eyes, light flooded the barely decorated room. Though it probably wouldn’t be long before she crawled back between the furs, Sai still straightened and made the bed after slipping out of it. Feet padding gently on the stone, the rhythmic sound occasionally skipping a beat when her foot fell on a fur, she moved around and lit two other candles. After the original was replaced, she moved to the chest at the end of her bed and settled cross-legged atop it, again. Joy was winding up tightly, amplified by anticipation, in the back of Sai’s mind, causing her to squirm in the unstable candle light. Violently expanding lungs pulled air through her nostrils and down her windpipe, Sai using the expansion of her chest to straighten her posture. Lungs full, she paused, holding the air in and focusing on the momentary tightness until it gave way to stillness. At some point during the calm moments before her body informed her it would like more air, her eyes shut and her palms cupped her bony knees. Then the dam broke, used air rushing and bursting free of her parted lips, and the general sinking of her chest took with it the tension in her torso. It happened much quicker than it had the previous night, but then again, happiness was a little easier to settle down than lust. Carefully, she focused all her attention on the sensations of her body. To let any noises from the living chamber steal her attention would ruin the tenuous hold she had on peace. It had to start with physical control before she could attempt to let her mind wander. Her head felt light and then heavy, like it was perfectly balanced on her spine one moment but tilting off to the side the next. It’s not doing anything Where the thought came from, she didn’t know, but she did know that she didn’t want her body doing anything. It’s not doing anything It’s not doing anything It’s not doing anything It’s not doing anything Her mind wrapped around the words, around the idea they represented, around the physical state they represented. In her mind, malleable white folds layered themselves over the words, pushing the phrase over, toppling it and covering it in another sheet until the long bundle gradually became a ball, then a bigger ball, many layers and folds and ever turning. It’s not doing anything The layering process started anew, the first ball floating nearby. Many floating orbs of creamy white layers, satiny, floated in her mind. Nothing else moved, nothing made a sound, there was nothing there. Addy wasn’t there. Perhaps she was in one of those slowly revolving orbs, muted and buffered by layer upon layer of gentle material. The material extended. It wrapped around her body, spiraling around each limb to protect her pale skin from the chill of the air, or the vibrations from sound and flickering light. Every fiber of her being was wrapped up snugly, blanketed and at her command. Delicate eyelids parted, the gesture tranquil, as was the slow uncoiling and travel to each of the candles to blow them out before climbing into bed. Gradually, her senses extended again, through the satin protecting her. Around her, the sound of laughter vibrated, she was aware of it, but it didn’t affect her. Addy was hopeful, but she was only aware of it, she didn’t feel it.

[Sairque]

3 Spring, 504 AV In the cool breeze, no Golden Aspens chimed,they had no gold with which to buy their tune; they had only green buds too premature to trade up with. The largest of the snow drifts still stood strong in the early spring chill, sepulcher to the vegetation that laid dormant beneath them, vegetation waiting for their annual rescue. Two young mountain goats, secure in their sure footed mastery over the land, scaled a stubby rock face only to leap from the end; round and round they went, their saving grace not the abbreviated length of the fall but the extended depth of the snow bank they chose as their landing site. Chilled almost to the point of giving up, Sai laid in wait. The wind wasn't in her favor, nor was the terrain. The goat's stubby jungle gym crouched at the top of the chute while thick rock walls flanked either side down to the little bushy outcropping she occupied. Her first kills of the season frolicked just out of reach. Sun currently just past its zenith, it had just crested the mountain peaks when she'd stumbled upon the pair this morning, yet they showed no sign of tiring at their games. Beneath the youthfully jagged stone, she perched in anticipation, waiting, but allowing herself no lounging that could jeopardize her reaction time should an opening present itself. Three bells later, startled by an indefinable crack renting the spring air, seven white fleeced beasts shot passed her hideout. The wind whipped and her line of sight blurred dirtily, but two goats left bloody trails and Sai's bow still quivered on the verge of releasing a third arrow. It had started out as an exercise to take her mind off the cold and ended with two shots the young hunter never should have been able to make. Two bells prior: The wind took advantage of her inactivity to rob the katinu-clad hunter of her warmth, but she knew from previous excursions that the temperature was no where near dangerous; the sharp discomfort merely stemmed form herminsfocus on the sensation of heat transfer, blowing the sensation up, giving it more import than it should have. Like her sister's sexual arousal. the feeling slipped through their bond like an eel, and though it had no reason to, her body seemed to find its presence of the utmost import. Twice Sai'd managed to minimize that--a chill should be no different. Round and round the goats went, leaping with wild abandonment, plunging chest deep in the snow, kicking,jumping free, scurrying back up the hill, scaling the rocks, leaping again. Round and round they ran, like a water spout whirling over the ocean, creating a vortex between them, a hollow tube wherein existed nothing, but where anything could find still tranquility in the vacuum. A place where heat and cold knew no definition; for what could temperature do for the sturdy balance of serenity. It wouldn't help to increase the absence of irritation or decrease the presence of opportunity. Perched on the balls of her feet, arms wrapped around her knees and fingers grasping the longbow at the ready, Sairque's world narrowed to the steadily growing group of goats just out of bow shot. The wind picked up, the brush started whipping, clouds rolled in and rolled out. A little goat laid down at the edge of the stubby rocks, making a good obstruction that the rest took in stride. Echoing through the narrow grotto, an unnatural crack ripped through the spring air and sent the goats panicking. In a group, they sprinted down, finally meshing into a line and taking the game trail that rounded Sai's outcropping. Scuffling sounds hidden in the beating of hooves, the young hunter shuffled over to the taller rock formation and stood, calmly drawing and lining up with a rough estimation of where the goat's chests would be should they continue down this trail. It was equally likely that they take a right, off the trail, and disappear into a deeper but bushier draw. Without a way to watch both options with a shot, Sai picked her stand, come what may. Branches whipped in the wind, hitting the back of her head, pushing her cap off to the left, but round and round the goats came, their vortex still insulating Sai's attentions. Thwang, the first arrow release at the first bit of white fluff zipping across her branch-littered line of sight, just fifteen paces away. Quick and precise motions reloaded the weapon, drew, adjusted for sight, and released again. Thwang. Out of the corner of her eye, already reaching to knock another arrow, one of the goats stumbled but kept moving. Only one more arrow found air time before the white shapes had all passed. When nothing further happened, no more unnatural cracks ringing out, the woman pushed through the brush, shoving aside clinging thorns and clasping her cap down tight. At the first drops of blackish blood smattered across the trail, the focus dropped and Sai whooped joyfully.