06-27-2017, 04:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-29-2017, 10:11 AM by King Ghidorah.
Edit Reason: "Paging Ghidorah. Clean-up on aisle origin-story."
)
Now that the prospect of food had been presented to her Pinay realized she was absolutely ravenous. Her suspicious evaporated instantly in the face of a very basic need.
"Yes," she said. "Please."
Mothra summoned a set of polished wooden bowls filled with seasoned meat and vegetables. Pinay watched the process intently, suffering a newfound awareness of the difference between the vacant ache in her stomach and the pulsing fatigue in her bones. The very moment the prismatic glow of active Omnilium faded the elf fell upon the rations as though she hadn't had a meal in years, crouching on the floor of the hut and eating with trembling hands.
The healer descended, its pale feet finally touching the floor, but otherwise barely moved. Only its strange little smile twitched as it summoned its guest a set of bright red robes.
"Take your time," Mothra said. "I'll be right here when you're ready to talk."
When Pinay finished her meal, she put on the clothes without hesitation. The robes fit her well, hanging loosely around the arms and ending just below her knees. Finally fed and clothed, her ravaged body warmed by the circle of sunlight that poured in through the chimney-hole in the roof, Pinay regained the power to think like more than a frightened animal. What, exactly, had happened? She remembered the monster, the attack, the flight from the Oskinders' camp and its horrible conclusion. But where was she now? And what had happened to the rest of her people? She'd only seen the beginning of Ghidorah's assault, and even that brief impression was overwhelming. She realized now that she'd actually been very lucky; It made her feel sick to imagine how many must have died, and she dreaded learning the names.
Pinay turned to the mysterious healer, standing patiently beside the entrance to the little hut with its hands folded inside the sleeves of its robe. It had begun to hover again, only its toes remaining in contact with the floor as some unknown power bouyed it upward.
"Thank you," the elf rasped, "For tending my wounds, and for the food, and the clothes. You've been very kind. But... I'd like to rejoin my people. The survivors will have fled East, around the valley, towards the gate to the Nexus. I'm sure that they'll also need your help."
Mothra's multifaceted eyes sparkled intently. Her heels returned to the floor, and her odd little smile evaporated. Pinay suddenly felt shaky and cold again, as though she were walking a rope over a very deep chasm beset by howling wind. Reflexively, she pulled her robe tighter around her shoulders.
"If you could take me to them..."
She trailed off. The prime's almost-human face now wore a tiny, sad frown. The chasm yawned wider.
"They're here," the healer said. All of the brightness had left its voice. Then it said something else - Something that buzzed and burned. It was nonsense - impossible - turning the chasm to a caldera. A roar filled Pinay's mind, hot and wet behind her eyes. There was a thought that was trying to come, something that she had just been told, but every part of her was rejecting it. The feeling was different from the psychological static of panic, or the ephemeral pangs of fear and hunger - it was bigger, unimaginably so, and the weight of it was grinding her soul.
The elf stood completely still for several minutes, staring at nothing. Then in a sudden burst of manic urgency, she shouldered past Mothra, tearing aside the curtain, and stumbled out into the sunlight.
Outside, the reek of scorched earth and the sour stench of ashes was overpowering. The ground was hot, and covered in a thick layer of fine soot, shining off-white in the midday sun. The hut stood at the edge of a broad clearing in the middle of a desolate forest - a tangled expanse of dead trees, uprooted, shattered, and charred black. A single enormous mass of charcoal lay half-sunken among the drifts of ash and cinder, the trunk of a much larger plant, long fallen but only recently burned, casting half the clearing into shadow. The only indication that anything living remained in the world was a line of green on the horizon, separating the cloudless blue sky from this scorched waste.
Pinay walked as though in a trance, a single point of brilliant red and tarnished gold upon an ocean of lifeless gray. Ashes whispered like sand around her scarred ankles as, unseeing, she circled around a depression in the blanket of soot which outlined a three-toed footprint the size of a covered wagon.
Over the course of unknown hours, the elf's aimless feet carried her the length and breadth of the clearing, all around it and back again. Slowly, she began to see what was around her, details swept up and added to the white-hot clamor of this horrible living dream. Here there was a broken spear, resting in the ashes, still clutched in a charred golden hand. There was a lean-too, fallen and coated with ash, but miraculously unburned. And here she tripped over a rock, which upon closer inspection was a skull, too delicate to be human and too small to belong to an adult.
As the sun sank lower, she began to see faces in the ashes, hands and feet - some she was sure she was imagining, but too many, far too many, were real. Clutching weapons. Staring at nothing. Reaching out for help that would never come.
The last Oskinder wood-elf choked, stumbling to her knees, as a tiny notion of what this place was and what it meant finally penetrated through to her core. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. All of her people, everyone she knew, children, parents, friends, lovers, just objects now: Broken props in a mad pantomime put on by a demented, evil god. The only thing that kept her from giving in to the urge was some distant echo of a woman who had been happy. It whispered from within a mental furnace that swirled ever faster, told her that if she even began to chuckle, if she pursued that brimming tide of hideous clarity, she'd become irretrievably insane.
Pinay felt a hand on her shoulder, and a comforting presence at her back.
"I'm sorry," said Mothra.
"Yes," she said. "Please."
Mothra summoned a set of polished wooden bowls filled with seasoned meat and vegetables. Pinay watched the process intently, suffering a newfound awareness of the difference between the vacant ache in her stomach and the pulsing fatigue in her bones. The very moment the prismatic glow of active Omnilium faded the elf fell upon the rations as though she hadn't had a meal in years, crouching on the floor of the hut and eating with trembling hands.
The healer descended, its pale feet finally touching the floor, but otherwise barely moved. Only its strange little smile twitched as it summoned its guest a set of bright red robes.
"Take your time," Mothra said. "I'll be right here when you're ready to talk."
When Pinay finished her meal, she put on the clothes without hesitation. The robes fit her well, hanging loosely around the arms and ending just below her knees. Finally fed and clothed, her ravaged body warmed by the circle of sunlight that poured in through the chimney-hole in the roof, Pinay regained the power to think like more than a frightened animal. What, exactly, had happened? She remembered the monster, the attack, the flight from the Oskinders' camp and its horrible conclusion. But where was she now? And what had happened to the rest of her people? She'd only seen the beginning of Ghidorah's assault, and even that brief impression was overwhelming. She realized now that she'd actually been very lucky; It made her feel sick to imagine how many must have died, and she dreaded learning the names.
Pinay turned to the mysterious healer, standing patiently beside the entrance to the little hut with its hands folded inside the sleeves of its robe. It had begun to hover again, only its toes remaining in contact with the floor as some unknown power bouyed it upward.
"Thank you," the elf rasped, "For tending my wounds, and for the food, and the clothes. You've been very kind. But... I'd like to rejoin my people. The survivors will have fled East, around the valley, towards the gate to the Nexus. I'm sure that they'll also need your help."
Mothra's multifaceted eyes sparkled intently. Her heels returned to the floor, and her odd little smile evaporated. Pinay suddenly felt shaky and cold again, as though she were walking a rope over a very deep chasm beset by howling wind. Reflexively, she pulled her robe tighter around her shoulders.
"If you could take me to them..."
She trailed off. The prime's almost-human face now wore a tiny, sad frown. The chasm yawned wider.
"They're here," the healer said. All of the brightness had left its voice. Then it said something else - Something that buzzed and burned. It was nonsense - impossible - turning the chasm to a caldera. A roar filled Pinay's mind, hot and wet behind her eyes. There was a thought that was trying to come, something that she had just been told, but every part of her was rejecting it. The feeling was different from the psychological static of panic, or the ephemeral pangs of fear and hunger - it was bigger, unimaginably so, and the weight of it was grinding her soul.
The elf stood completely still for several minutes, staring at nothing. Then in a sudden burst of manic urgency, she shouldered past Mothra, tearing aside the curtain, and stumbled out into the sunlight.
***
Outside, the reek of scorched earth and the sour stench of ashes was overpowering. The ground was hot, and covered in a thick layer of fine soot, shining off-white in the midday sun. The hut stood at the edge of a broad clearing in the middle of a desolate forest - a tangled expanse of dead trees, uprooted, shattered, and charred black. A single enormous mass of charcoal lay half-sunken among the drifts of ash and cinder, the trunk of a much larger plant, long fallen but only recently burned, casting half the clearing into shadow. The only indication that anything living remained in the world was a line of green on the horizon, separating the cloudless blue sky from this scorched waste.
Pinay walked as though in a trance, a single point of brilliant red and tarnished gold upon an ocean of lifeless gray. Ashes whispered like sand around her scarred ankles as, unseeing, she circled around a depression in the blanket of soot which outlined a three-toed footprint the size of a covered wagon.
Over the course of unknown hours, the elf's aimless feet carried her the length and breadth of the clearing, all around it and back again. Slowly, she began to see what was around her, details swept up and added to the white-hot clamor of this horrible living dream. Here there was a broken spear, resting in the ashes, still clutched in a charred golden hand. There was a lean-too, fallen and coated with ash, but miraculously unburned. And here she tripped over a rock, which upon closer inspection was a skull, too delicate to be human and too small to belong to an adult.
As the sun sank lower, she began to see faces in the ashes, hands and feet - some she was sure she was imagining, but too many, far too many, were real. Clutching weapons. Staring at nothing. Reaching out for help that would never come.
The last Oskinder wood-elf choked, stumbling to her knees, as a tiny notion of what this place was and what it meant finally penetrated through to her core. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. All of her people, everyone she knew, children, parents, friends, lovers, just objects now: Broken props in a mad pantomime put on by a demented, evil god. The only thing that kept her from giving in to the urge was some distant echo of a woman who had been happy. It whispered from within a mental furnace that swirled ever faster, told her that if she even began to chuckle, if she pursued that brimming tide of hideous clarity, she'd become irretrievably insane.
Pinay felt a hand on her shoulder, and a comforting presence at her back.
"I'm sorry," said Mothra.