Post by Joliette Thorne on Jun 23, 2007 0:18:56 GMT -5
Tenebrae, were anyone happening past at that moment, might be mistaken for the carcass of some large black bird of prey - her ragged dress splayed across the carpet of wildflowers giving all the appearance of broken wings, her painfully thin frame largely hidden below it, and her wild tangle of ebon hair. The once-necromancer was kneeling, with her palms pressed flat to the earth, one ear against the ground, and her cracked lips moved almost silently. If one were to come closer, and had sharp hearing, soft words might be discerned: "No, no, little flowers, I believe you no more than the flitmice. Your voices are more like his, it's true, but your whispers lie and lie, just the same. What's that? You thirst? We all thirst, and hunger, too... you'll not have my blood, had I any to give."
Terra was a woman with a mission. Locate the Ruins of Greatness and pay homage to the dark lords that she had heard so many tales about. Terra was also a woman with a scatterbrain and locating the Ruins proved to be a bit harder than she foresaw. The cloak of ebony was wrapped tighter about her lithe form, and careful, calculated steps were taken to avoid the protruding rocks. The elf pauses however, eyes squinting at her surroundings as she senses another within range. Slowly, subtly, the ranger moves her hand backwards to gather her bow as she moves closer towards the vampiress; mistaking her form for an animal, prey. Silence resumes as steps cease and breathing becomes slow. The sight before her is taken in with a curled lip, confusion settling within every feature as she tries to decide if Tenebrae is human or not. Within hearing range of her now, Terra can't help but stop and stare in wonder. What in the blaze was this...female going on about? She crouched low then, balancing on the balls of her feet and studied the fallen necromancer. Finally, words find the girl and she speaks. "You there. You're aware you speak to nothing?"
Tenebrae did not glance up immediately upon hearing the elf's sharp enquiry. Instead, she pressed her head harder into the wildflowers, a frown knitting her brow. "Oh, so now you gain proper voice, little flowers, booming like a thundercloud, trying to confuse me. Which of you has such a voice? You only whisper, and whisper, soft as kittens, usually... And it's not his voice anymore." Tene lifted her head, shaking it gently in reproach to the perceived trick. Her weight resting on one palm, she raised the other hand to wag a finger at the ground. "New tricks, new tricks, you won't catch me out, not while my name is still..." The woman faded out there, confusion crinkling her pale face. "Anyhow. At least you've stopped barking."
Terra stilled, frozen by her words and the dawning of the realization that the female was out of her gourd. It was tempting, the urge to simply get up and walk away, freeing herself of the complications the woman would obviously come with, but Terra couldn't. Wouldn't. Standing erect as not to tread on the cloak that puddled at her feet, she allowed her feet to carry her forward once more while her mind told her to flee. This time she braved to stand at the head of Tenebrae, leaving space between the two until she crouched once more, thigh to heel and a hand resting on her own knee. The free hand balanced her, palm flat against the ground at which Tene's finger wagged and scolded. "I never barked to begin with."
Tenebrae jumped slightly, head turned with an almost owl-like action toward the stranger, and Terra would likely notice first the whiteness of the starving vampiress' features, and that of her once-green eyes, now almost as blanched as her face. Slender fingers were flown up to her lips, and moved there in an ivory flutter. "Oh my..." She blinked rapidly. "Women don't bark, do they? Unless they are mad... I hope you're not mad. Are you? I thought there was something amiss. Or is it that there isn't, I can't tell anymore." Tene - or the woman once known by that name - plucked a small flower from the turf below, and hesitantly offered it to the elf. "This one will whisper no more. Seeing as I just killed it." She smiled, the cracks on her lips oozing a clear serum. The expression dulled as rapidly as it came, though, and she spoke again. "They speak with the voice of the Lion, who is gone, to make me mad, you know. Only the shadows know where he is, and they are ignoring me..." She sighed. "I suppose I might join him soon... but the question is -- how long does it take an immortal to die the second of the three deaths promised?" Grass and twigs dropped from her hair as she shook her head. "It's a riddle, with no answer. Who are you?"
Terra extends her hand to accept the offered flower, a frown tugging her lips downward as Tene continues onwards. The more the vampiress speaks, the more Terra finds herself perplexed. A tilt of the head there, a nod here to show she's listening before she simply blanches. The shadows ignore her? And the female's features were frightening, her pallid countenance inspiring Terra to remove something from her pack- a slice of buttered bread, slightly cold from her travels. "Take this." Without waiting an answer she sets it before Tene. "I'm Terra. And you won't die, alright? I'll tend to you... Do you recall your name? Or how you came about this place?" Resisting the urge to shiver as the surroundings are taken in, eyes the color of chartreuse falling once more to the fallen.
Tenebrae took the bread, giving the morsel a tentative sniff, but took no bite from it. Rather, she looked at it mournfully, before turning her wall-eyed gaze to Terra. "Not much of an appetite, I fear. But thankyou." Tene tucked the bread into a pocket, presumably for later... though it was likely to be forgotten there, not to mention covered in dirt. "I won't die... No, I won't. They won't let me go. As hard as I try, even to walking into the sea. But the fished me out like a washerwoman taking up an errant sock and dumped me to shore, all the while silent as this bread." She patted her pocket. "Terra. Pretty. Your ears are rather long." The former death-mage glanced up to the sky. "The stars will be out soon. They are my only comfort, you know?" Her lower lip quivered, then. "... they remind me of him, a million billion diamonds, eternally wandering, never to die.... As to how I came here, it was on my legs. And as to my name..." She paused, frowned. "I'm just a shadow. Yes, that's it, just a shadow."
Terra obviously felt sympathy, and whom with a heart wouldn't? Locks of aurulent are tucked more securely behind aforementioned pointed ears as she takes in Tene's quivering lip and how she disposes of the offered bread. "It'd be better if you ate, sweets." The cadaverous form is motioned towards with a slight flick of the wrist. "You're malnourished, it appears." Falling backwards to ease the weight off her feet, she sat before Tenebrae. "Who do you speak of? This male that causes you such sorrow. Such a beauty should not be among the ground, nor claiming a shadow as her life and title. And surely what is lost can be found... Shall I aid you in your search?"
Tenebrae shuddered slightly, as the last of the light faded, and sat up a bit. With the setting of the sun, she seemed to calm a little, and her eyes glinted with something of sanity. "I... I have no hunger, for anything but my Lion. And it's getting hard for me to see his face, it slips away, and only his voice remains, like an echo, from the flittermice and little flowers." She shook her head. "He took all the Light from this world, and without light, the shadows cannot be." She brushed bits of grass from her filthy dress. "They vanish, into the dark. I don't know what happens to them after that." The vampiress drew herself to a stand, unsteadily, and peered down at Terra. "Tell me... where would you look for the Light, if all around you were midnight blackness? I have searched the lands, the sky, even the waters, just to prove the flowers were lying. He's dead.." She choked these last words out. "And I remain." A ragged breath escaped her lips, and she shrugged her too-thin shoulders lightly. "Were you going somewhere?"
Terra follows Tenebrae's lead and arises erect, stretching and soon brushing off the remnants of the ground. "Even darkness falls eventually." A cock of the head towards the setting sun shows physical proof of her words. "And as the morning comes closer, so shall the light. It'll never be the same light that it was yesterday, however. But you must be grateful that you receive any at all." Here, she pauses. Thinking her words would only make sense to those without sense, and it seemed the female before her was slowly regaining sanity and composure. "My original destination is of no importance at the moment. I've other concerns to tend to, such as you."
Tenebrae blinked again, her tone a little sharper, approaching rational. "Then you waste your time. There's no hope for me, and nor do I seek it. But I do want to know why these flowers have been calling me -- for days, they have mimicked the voice of the Lion, and I have finally traced them here. Now they fall silent, damn them. If it wasn't you barking earlier, then it must have been them, too. Why would they do that?" She frowned. "I even annoy myself, you know. I wish I could see things clearly. I think I once must have, it feels like the world is a painting that's been papered over and smudged. Shall we walk a little?" The once-necromancer took a faltering step toward the South. "If we stay here, they might decide to speak again." She nodded toward the wildflowers with narrowed eyes, and looked to Terra expectantly.
Terra had no qualms with the chosen direction as that was her original intent. Quickly falling into step with Tenebrae, she nodded. Offering her arm to the former death-mage, Terra fell silent as she thought about her own reply and where she was heading. "Take it." Though she held no expectations of the other listening. "The flowers shan't speak while I'm around, and if they do so, I'll kill them." Appeasing and indulging in Tene's fantasies seemed the best option. "Tell me more of your Lion, will you?"
The desert night was cool, though the sand beneath her bare feet was still hot enough from the day's blazing sun to warm the chill flesh of her feet. Tene has taken the offered arm, more out of necessity than any desire for contact, though somewhere in her she was almost glad of it. "You'd kill them? Really?" She seemed pleased at the prospect. "How sweet of you." She paused, pressed her lips together. "My Lion is dead, and he took the Light with him. I heard it from a man, or the bats, somebody. Can't recall. But they said he was dead, these past days, and he was lost before that." She stopped, turned to face the woman, and in those pale eyes was such sorrow it might have cracked the heart of one less stoic. "He was all I had, and all I wanted. I know this, because I saw him everywhere, in every reflection, and every face I passed. I think we must have been very happy, when he wasn't dead."
Terra ducked her head and avoided eye contact. Though Tene was in mourning, envious was the little elf who had not yet experienced such a passionate love. "You've no proof?" She inquired, curious as to what the other meant when mentioning her 'Lion'. "Only the word of things that have no right to speak? Voices similar to that of those pesky flowers north of here?" Terra had to be sure that the rumor of the Lion's falling weren't simply the words of fictional beings. "They've not located a body? Or any other assurance of his passing?"
Tenebrae nodded. "I must have trusted the voices, once. I remember believing them, if not their exact words, or faces. But I trusted them. Or I'd still be looking..." In the distance, came a sharp but faint yapping sound. The vampiress winced, shrank into herself a little. "There they go again. Stupid flowers. Or..." She glanced up at the sky. "Could be bats."
Terra shook her head, believing her own self to have gone a bit mad due to the company she had kept for so long. "That," She stared intently at the general direction of the sound, "Was not a bat or a flower, I'm afraid." Out of habit a hand had crept towards the bow hidden at her back, a careful eye on Tene. "Are you alright there?" Terra was torn between wanting to locate the source of such an odd sound and comforting the vampiress who was in no good state of mental being.
Tenebrae had, if it was at all possible, turned an even paler shade. "Not them? But.. it sounds so familiar." She looked utterly forlorn then. "If it isn't the flowers nor bats, then it's Hope, come to torture me with things I can't remember."
Terra had removed the bow from her back and an arrow, positioning and aiming carefully towards the approaching animal. "Probably just an animal." Reassuring was the attempted tone, but it was given only half-heartedly as her attention had turned away from the gangly Tene. "Pardon me a moment?" Answers weren't required and she began creeping towards the sound.
Tenebrae was about to part her lips to speak the affirmative, when from the west bulleted a black shape - against the night, no more than a fleeting shadow, though the vociferous yipping it was sounding was proof of the creature's solidity. The animal - clearly a dog, bounded by, turning its head toward the former death-mage to release a volley of sound before disappearing over a dune to the south. Moments later, the astonished vampiress saw the head of the dog pop back over the edge, release another barrage of noise, and duck away again. "D.. did you see that?" The bewildered woman pointed, the question given Terra. "It is.. not a bat, indeed."
Tenebrae took Terra's sleeve as she hurried to catch up, her voice dropping. "Shall we follow it a bit?"
Terra dropped her arms to her sides and threw caution to the wind, agreeing to the request issued forth. "Fine. Let's go skipping after voices."
Tenebrae nodded, and did as best she could to hurry over the dune, after something that might have been a memory.
Terra was a woman with a mission. Locate the Ruins of Greatness and pay homage to the dark lords that she had heard so many tales about. Terra was also a woman with a scatterbrain and locating the Ruins proved to be a bit harder than she foresaw. The cloak of ebony was wrapped tighter about her lithe form, and careful, calculated steps were taken to avoid the protruding rocks. The elf pauses however, eyes squinting at her surroundings as she senses another within range. Slowly, subtly, the ranger moves her hand backwards to gather her bow as she moves closer towards the vampiress; mistaking her form for an animal, prey. Silence resumes as steps cease and breathing becomes slow. The sight before her is taken in with a curled lip, confusion settling within every feature as she tries to decide if Tenebrae is human or not. Within hearing range of her now, Terra can't help but stop and stare in wonder. What in the blaze was this...female going on about? She crouched low then, balancing on the balls of her feet and studied the fallen necromancer. Finally, words find the girl and she speaks. "You there. You're aware you speak to nothing?"
Tenebrae did not glance up immediately upon hearing the elf's sharp enquiry. Instead, she pressed her head harder into the wildflowers, a frown knitting her brow. "Oh, so now you gain proper voice, little flowers, booming like a thundercloud, trying to confuse me. Which of you has such a voice? You only whisper, and whisper, soft as kittens, usually... And it's not his voice anymore." Tene lifted her head, shaking it gently in reproach to the perceived trick. Her weight resting on one palm, she raised the other hand to wag a finger at the ground. "New tricks, new tricks, you won't catch me out, not while my name is still..." The woman faded out there, confusion crinkling her pale face. "Anyhow. At least you've stopped barking."
Terra stilled, frozen by her words and the dawning of the realization that the female was out of her gourd. It was tempting, the urge to simply get up and walk away, freeing herself of the complications the woman would obviously come with, but Terra couldn't. Wouldn't. Standing erect as not to tread on the cloak that puddled at her feet, she allowed her feet to carry her forward once more while her mind told her to flee. This time she braved to stand at the head of Tenebrae, leaving space between the two until she crouched once more, thigh to heel and a hand resting on her own knee. The free hand balanced her, palm flat against the ground at which Tene's finger wagged and scolded. "I never barked to begin with."
Tenebrae jumped slightly, head turned with an almost owl-like action toward the stranger, and Terra would likely notice first the whiteness of the starving vampiress' features, and that of her once-green eyes, now almost as blanched as her face. Slender fingers were flown up to her lips, and moved there in an ivory flutter. "Oh my..." She blinked rapidly. "Women don't bark, do they? Unless they are mad... I hope you're not mad. Are you? I thought there was something amiss. Or is it that there isn't, I can't tell anymore." Tene - or the woman once known by that name - plucked a small flower from the turf below, and hesitantly offered it to the elf. "This one will whisper no more. Seeing as I just killed it." She smiled, the cracks on her lips oozing a clear serum. The expression dulled as rapidly as it came, though, and she spoke again. "They speak with the voice of the Lion, who is gone, to make me mad, you know. Only the shadows know where he is, and they are ignoring me..." She sighed. "I suppose I might join him soon... but the question is -- how long does it take an immortal to die the second of the three deaths promised?" Grass and twigs dropped from her hair as she shook her head. "It's a riddle, with no answer. Who are you?"
Terra extends her hand to accept the offered flower, a frown tugging her lips downward as Tene continues onwards. The more the vampiress speaks, the more Terra finds herself perplexed. A tilt of the head there, a nod here to show she's listening before she simply blanches. The shadows ignore her? And the female's features were frightening, her pallid countenance inspiring Terra to remove something from her pack- a slice of buttered bread, slightly cold from her travels. "Take this." Without waiting an answer she sets it before Tene. "I'm Terra. And you won't die, alright? I'll tend to you... Do you recall your name? Or how you came about this place?" Resisting the urge to shiver as the surroundings are taken in, eyes the color of chartreuse falling once more to the fallen.
Tenebrae took the bread, giving the morsel a tentative sniff, but took no bite from it. Rather, she looked at it mournfully, before turning her wall-eyed gaze to Terra. "Not much of an appetite, I fear. But thankyou." Tene tucked the bread into a pocket, presumably for later... though it was likely to be forgotten there, not to mention covered in dirt. "I won't die... No, I won't. They won't let me go. As hard as I try, even to walking into the sea. But the fished me out like a washerwoman taking up an errant sock and dumped me to shore, all the while silent as this bread." She patted her pocket. "Terra. Pretty. Your ears are rather long." The former death-mage glanced up to the sky. "The stars will be out soon. They are my only comfort, you know?" Her lower lip quivered, then. "... they remind me of him, a million billion diamonds, eternally wandering, never to die.... As to how I came here, it was on my legs. And as to my name..." She paused, frowned. "I'm just a shadow. Yes, that's it, just a shadow."
Terra obviously felt sympathy, and whom with a heart wouldn't? Locks of aurulent are tucked more securely behind aforementioned pointed ears as she takes in Tene's quivering lip and how she disposes of the offered bread. "It'd be better if you ate, sweets." The cadaverous form is motioned towards with a slight flick of the wrist. "You're malnourished, it appears." Falling backwards to ease the weight off her feet, she sat before Tenebrae. "Who do you speak of? This male that causes you such sorrow. Such a beauty should not be among the ground, nor claiming a shadow as her life and title. And surely what is lost can be found... Shall I aid you in your search?"
Tenebrae shuddered slightly, as the last of the light faded, and sat up a bit. With the setting of the sun, she seemed to calm a little, and her eyes glinted with something of sanity. "I... I have no hunger, for anything but my Lion. And it's getting hard for me to see his face, it slips away, and only his voice remains, like an echo, from the flittermice and little flowers." She shook her head. "He took all the Light from this world, and without light, the shadows cannot be." She brushed bits of grass from her filthy dress. "They vanish, into the dark. I don't know what happens to them after that." The vampiress drew herself to a stand, unsteadily, and peered down at Terra. "Tell me... where would you look for the Light, if all around you were midnight blackness? I have searched the lands, the sky, even the waters, just to prove the flowers were lying. He's dead.." She choked these last words out. "And I remain." A ragged breath escaped her lips, and she shrugged her too-thin shoulders lightly. "Were you going somewhere?"
Terra follows Tenebrae's lead and arises erect, stretching and soon brushing off the remnants of the ground. "Even darkness falls eventually." A cock of the head towards the setting sun shows physical proof of her words. "And as the morning comes closer, so shall the light. It'll never be the same light that it was yesterday, however. But you must be grateful that you receive any at all." Here, she pauses. Thinking her words would only make sense to those without sense, and it seemed the female before her was slowly regaining sanity and composure. "My original destination is of no importance at the moment. I've other concerns to tend to, such as you."
Tenebrae blinked again, her tone a little sharper, approaching rational. "Then you waste your time. There's no hope for me, and nor do I seek it. But I do want to know why these flowers have been calling me -- for days, they have mimicked the voice of the Lion, and I have finally traced them here. Now they fall silent, damn them. If it wasn't you barking earlier, then it must have been them, too. Why would they do that?" She frowned. "I even annoy myself, you know. I wish I could see things clearly. I think I once must have, it feels like the world is a painting that's been papered over and smudged. Shall we walk a little?" The once-necromancer took a faltering step toward the South. "If we stay here, they might decide to speak again." She nodded toward the wildflowers with narrowed eyes, and looked to Terra expectantly.
Terra had no qualms with the chosen direction as that was her original intent. Quickly falling into step with Tenebrae, she nodded. Offering her arm to the former death-mage, Terra fell silent as she thought about her own reply and where she was heading. "Take it." Though she held no expectations of the other listening. "The flowers shan't speak while I'm around, and if they do so, I'll kill them." Appeasing and indulging in Tene's fantasies seemed the best option. "Tell me more of your Lion, will you?"
The desert night was cool, though the sand beneath her bare feet was still hot enough from the day's blazing sun to warm the chill flesh of her feet. Tene has taken the offered arm, more out of necessity than any desire for contact, though somewhere in her she was almost glad of it. "You'd kill them? Really?" She seemed pleased at the prospect. "How sweet of you." She paused, pressed her lips together. "My Lion is dead, and he took the Light with him. I heard it from a man, or the bats, somebody. Can't recall. But they said he was dead, these past days, and he was lost before that." She stopped, turned to face the woman, and in those pale eyes was such sorrow it might have cracked the heart of one less stoic. "He was all I had, and all I wanted. I know this, because I saw him everywhere, in every reflection, and every face I passed. I think we must have been very happy, when he wasn't dead."
Terra ducked her head and avoided eye contact. Though Tene was in mourning, envious was the little elf who had not yet experienced such a passionate love. "You've no proof?" She inquired, curious as to what the other meant when mentioning her 'Lion'. "Only the word of things that have no right to speak? Voices similar to that of those pesky flowers north of here?" Terra had to be sure that the rumor of the Lion's falling weren't simply the words of fictional beings. "They've not located a body? Or any other assurance of his passing?"
Tenebrae nodded. "I must have trusted the voices, once. I remember believing them, if not their exact words, or faces. But I trusted them. Or I'd still be looking..." In the distance, came a sharp but faint yapping sound. The vampiress winced, shrank into herself a little. "There they go again. Stupid flowers. Or..." She glanced up at the sky. "Could be bats."
Terra shook her head, believing her own self to have gone a bit mad due to the company she had kept for so long. "That," She stared intently at the general direction of the sound, "Was not a bat or a flower, I'm afraid." Out of habit a hand had crept towards the bow hidden at her back, a careful eye on Tene. "Are you alright there?" Terra was torn between wanting to locate the source of such an odd sound and comforting the vampiress who was in no good state of mental being.
Tenebrae had, if it was at all possible, turned an even paler shade. "Not them? But.. it sounds so familiar." She looked utterly forlorn then. "If it isn't the flowers nor bats, then it's Hope, come to torture me with things I can't remember."
Terra had removed the bow from her back and an arrow, positioning and aiming carefully towards the approaching animal. "Probably just an animal." Reassuring was the attempted tone, but it was given only half-heartedly as her attention had turned away from the gangly Tene. "Pardon me a moment?" Answers weren't required and she began creeping towards the sound.
Tenebrae was about to part her lips to speak the affirmative, when from the west bulleted a black shape - against the night, no more than a fleeting shadow, though the vociferous yipping it was sounding was proof of the creature's solidity. The animal - clearly a dog, bounded by, turning its head toward the former death-mage to release a volley of sound before disappearing over a dune to the south. Moments later, the astonished vampiress saw the head of the dog pop back over the edge, release another barrage of noise, and duck away again. "D.. did you see that?" The bewildered woman pointed, the question given Terra. "It is.. not a bat, indeed."
Tenebrae took Terra's sleeve as she hurried to catch up, her voice dropping. "Shall we follow it a bit?"
Terra dropped her arms to her sides and threw caution to the wind, agreeing to the request issued forth. "Fine. Let's go skipping after voices."
Tenebrae nodded, and did as best she could to hurry over the dune, after something that might have been a memory.