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The door to the audience chamber was still firmly shut, the frail lass on the other side fidgeting and fussing nervously at the silken, intricately embroidered garment she'd been given. It was a mix of eastern and old, old Renaissance in design, with old Asian embroidery, long sheer sleeves, and a wide, nearly weightless, flowing hem. She felt nothing short of awkward wearing it beside a naturally nude Reaver, and then a secretary bird Cenjoul who was clad in his own feathers and oddly open-thigh pants.

"C'mon," the Reaver began, her voice strangely soft against the Ryuakurei's delicate ears. "It won't be that bad."

The Cenjoul's crest feathers twitched at the pale woman's ensuing moan, before a hand curled lightly about her shoulder, the other gesturing an open palm toward the massive doors. "What would be the worst of it? A long story to tell?"

"One can only hope," the draconic lass half-groaned, one of her palm heels pressed to her temple.

A loud clacking noise sounded from the other side of the doors, before a slightly muffled voice filtered through in herald. "And now presenting to her majesty Silaera, his highness, Iaeruki."

"Open the doors, Caspian," a slightly older woman's voice replied, before the very doors in question creaked apart. A soft, somewhat dim light poured out from the chamber, flooding over the faces of a one-eyed Reaver, and a demi-human secretary bird.

A squinted blink was sent forth from the Reaver's side, her face scrunching up at it, before she and the bird of prey beside her stepped forth, a touch of silver trailing closely behind them.

"…Dearest majesty," an uncertain voice began, originating from behind the two. "Before we begin, I must first ask that you do not be alarmed…" The siren's voice faltered, before that pale Ryuakurei slipped out from behind her two companions, her hands folded behind her back. "I understand I agreed to Ghydeias that I would return to the capital and offer my assistance in cutting off the attempt to force our alliance with the Ruekan Empire, however… I know not just how well I will be able to accomplish such a thing in my current state."

A long, blank stare of violet-tinted ruby met the platinum-haired woman, before slowly shifting between her two companions, as if seeking answers to questions that hadn't been asked and never would be. "…Excuse me?" the older woman finally managed. Her stare soon locked upon the girl below in utter abandon.

The delicate young female winced at the stare Silaera had given her and her companions. Somehow she knew it was going to end up like this. The shadow of a cringe tainting her red-emerald eyes, she cleared her throat very softly, as if in uncertainty, before beginning to fuss with the hem of her sleeve.

"Please… bear with me," she said painstakingly carefully. "There are still a few grey areas scattered about, but I could explain." She paused a moment, glancing back over her shoulder, before her ears sank and she slowly turned back. "…Or at least attempt to."

Both Reaver and Cenjoul were intent upon the girl, watching silently in the apprehensive air that was still flooding the atmosphere of the audience chamber.

"You must feel that that introduction was a mistake," the younger Ryuakurei continued. She became more hesitant to speak the longer she did so. "However… I fear that the only inaccuracy about it was the…" she cringed, "…the gender-specific pronoun."

The ensuing silence that loomed into the chamber was awkward and seemed almost eternal, bringing with it a terrible sinking feeling that settled heavily into the very pit of her chest. Silaera, her advisor—Caspian—and the armored officer beside the monarch were all at a loss. Even the aforementioned officer seemed particularly flabbergasted, and he was widely known as a man shaken by nothing.

An ear flicked; soon Silaera had broken her statuesque silence. Quietly clearing her throat into a loose fist, she turned towards the other two guests within the room. Her eyes, sharp and calculative, seemed to peer into the very being of the Reaver, and then the Cenjoul, before shifting back upon the young dragon. Eventually they came to rest on the other two again, before her brows furrowed, and a gentle yet powerful voice issued forth. "Well… Does she speak the truth?"

Though she was looking straight at the chaotic girl's company, it seemed the stellar dragon's inquiry was meant not only for them, but for her advisors as well. As the other two of her guests nodded Silaera turned to Caspian, who seemed to have no reply, before turning to the officer at her right. "Ghydeias?"

A notched ear twitched, a set of mismatched eyes turning to meet her, where they offered a faint blink, and then shifted down to scrutinize the lass in question. His stare was sharp and relentless, often leaving one to feel as though his eyes were pulling and prying at the flesh before digging their way underneath, into the bone, and then even one's very soul. It was a stare only the aged were capable of. It made the lass, who was looking up at him with silent and earnest appeal riddling her features, convulse in a nervous shudder and clench her hands before her breast.

Raising his head, Ghydeias twitched his nose, drawing in a whiff of the air, before he lowered his scruffy chin, and a slight frown marred his traditionally deadpan face. He could see an unmistakably familiar glint of repressed anguish buried in those scarlet-tainted emeralds, and the vaguest hint of coconut toyed at his sense of smell. With the twitch of an eye, he crossed his arms, inspecting the other two now—the Cenjoul of which he recognized—before turning his stare back upon Silaera, a touch of unease in his eyes.

"I see no deceit among any one of them," he began, his gruff, aged voice a low rasp. "They are as true to us as they are of flesh and blood."

That same, horrid silence clutched the chamber tightly in its grasp once again, constricting the lass' lungs and twisting her stomach into a roiling knot. Both draconic women had blanched at this point—one far worse than the other—and their blood ran cold. Silaera was the paler of the two; the girl before her was the colder. No real words existed that could properly express the way in which either one of them felt, but the awkwardness was overwhelming, and the anxiety was nerve-racking.

Finally one of them moved. Silaera, slowly rising from the seat she'd been settled in, held her stare solely upon the girl. Taking a moment to consider her balance, she stepped forth, descending fluidly to the steps below. Before Caspian had the chance to make a move or even a sound to object, one of her hands shot up towards him, which held his silence and his position as she continued fluidly down the steps, her feet steady, laced with a careful yet precarious grace.

A confused blink found the lass' face for a very brief moment—naught but a second—which was swiftly replaced by apprehension once again, progressively worsening the closer Silaera came. An elongated canine dug itself into her lip once the stellar dragon stopped directly before her and her dainty hands rose to wrap along the sides of the girl's seemingly frail head.

"Be still, my dear, and if anything, please relax your mind at least," Silaera murmured softly, perhaps assuring. Tendrils of midnight hair scattered with flecks of brilliant silver drifted betwixt their faces, before her fingertips curled against the shape of the younger woman's skull and drew their foreheads together. A thin tendril of dark static coiled and wove among her fingers, until her eyes closed, the spark dispersed across a sea of silver, and she seemed to draw them free of their physical boundaries.

As Silaera slipped beneath the surface of the girl's consciousness, the tormented cry of a young man clawed its way up from the very depths, tearing free into an agonized shriek that howled into the emptiness between their minds. Everything went entirely black, as if she had just plunged deep into the abyss. Her physical form flinched, bringing her consciousness to falter. Within the following moments, however, she regained herself, and then dove deeper into the void.

~`~`~`~`~

"Sir?"

"What is that?" A slender hand pointed upward, indicating the form of a massive glyph carved into the face of an ancient stone wall. "What do you suppose it means?" The voice was a low tenor, bordering on the very edge of a light baritone.

"Er…" An auburn-haired fellow blinked, following the point, before leaning closer to the wall, squinting at it. "Hnh… looks like mebbe an enchantment, or something of the sort."

"Enchantment?" A thoughtful grunt followed that inquisitive echo, before that same hand reached up, gently touching thin fingertips to its surface. With a sudden spark the glyph flared a near-blinding scarlet, bringing the entire party of… three? …to shuffle abruptly away. A loud, stone rumble echoed through the corridors, thundering even into one's chest.

"…What was that?" The auburn-headed one looked about, a concerned tweak in one of his brows.

"It sounded like something moved," that deep tenor replied observantly.
The glyph on the wall gradually faded into a maroon shadow of itself.

Scratching a burgundy-topped head, the third of the party shrugged, looking down the corridor, possibly in the direction the trio had been going. "Let's just keep moving. The rest of the royal family, and the entirety of this village, are waiting for us outside."

~`~`~`~`~

A low choking noise sputtered into the air, breaking what had once been a dank silence, before a heavy sloshing noise ensued, and the unmistakable wheeze of constricted breathing further rattled into the darkness. The distant echo of slow dripping, as of thick fluid running drop by drop into a larger congregation of itself, rebounded its way through what seemed miles of space to reach almost painfully sensitive ears.

Another strangled cough broke the low and steady wheeze tainting the atmosphere, soon shifting into a ghastly fit of choking and gagging. The gaunt form of a battered Ryuakurei heaved in the substance that flooded the stone chamber up to chest level, his abused stomach finally rejecting the stagnant mixture of blood and filth that had accumulated in it over the past few hours.

The most profound sensation was cold. An utter, bitter coldness gripped itself deep beneath his flesh and into the bone. Acid-bathed hooks, heated white, ripped and burned their way along the back of his throat, leaving behind a vicious sting. Open, festering wounds sent waves of searing pain throughout his body, as though treated liberally with vinegar. The air was so rank with disease that breathing was like pouring magma into his lungs, and it seemed to eat gradually away at his eyes. His vision had turned crimson. The ocular organs were slowly bleeding.

Both mind and body had been swallowed by a grim and utterly miserable abandon. Somewhere deep inside was a soft and distant whisper, the voiceless rasp of the wretched, which silently pleaded for the cold and absolute embrace of death.
HERP DERP I TAKE FOREVER TO PROOFREAD OLD THINGS.

Yup. I think this one's probably like... five years old. Maybe older. I didn't edit too much, but towards the end of this thing I ended up completely rewriting whole sentences because they were run-on as fuck.

Hopefully I got rid of the worst of the comma splices that were going in on here, but fuuuugh~

It ends on a somewhat abrupt note. As per usual I had plenty of things in mind to continue with but my brain cramped up and now it's constipated on this where it is. Since Silaera is looking into Iaeruki's memories to determine who she is I was going to drop in a series of mini-flashbacks to a variety of things that have happened throughout his time from his perspective.

So far it seems I was doing that somewhat awkwardly. There's more in the file than what's here, but I do this thing where I'll add bits that want to go in later so it gets all chunky and disjointed and shit.


ANYWAY, enjoy four pages' worth of "MOST AWKWARD HOMECOMING EVER."
© 2011 - 2024 Kaidona
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Telnavi1's avatar
Ok, lets touch the glowing rune. Nothing bad could possibly happen!