Day 11, First days of Zi'da 719
-‡- It was morning, the sun had risen up enough to layer the land with enough light to see through the haze the dessimating remainders of a fog that hung within the air, misting it white and clouding the view of any distance that the eye would be want to behold. There were sounds of birds chirping their egglings awake, bellowings of beasts who treaded on four hooves that echoed beneath the dense green canopy of various aged trees below. Farther in the distance, the light echoes of Athart could be seen in dismal projections through the air waves as the abundance of life there resonated into the skies above it, visible only to the Avriel eye.
Coroth had completed another patrol with the shadow wing he ventured out with during the nights, sometimes days at a time. The passing of winter had neared to a point where it had become hot days throughout the week, only for winter to come again with another week of dampening rains that perhaps, were once blizzards or heavy storms of snow from the northern ice lands. He was somewhat fatigued, all the flying from the patrols weighed upon his endurance and kept him in shape when it came to being an avriel who flew within the darkness of night, and hunted others from the heights of the trees.
Yet, on that morning as he approached his home spire, the jutting rise of rock and mountain whose curves and angles of stone had become known to him from varying angles of approach, was his to lay amber eyes upon once more. The denseness of the fog began to give way the closer and closer he drew near it. The flapping of his arduent wings a deep continual sound as they pressed upon the air and sent quakings tides of driftings winds behind him with every beat that kept him afloat. Wings that were stretched outwards, their light weight of feathers and persuading bones within flesh drawing him into a glide that let him soar onwards with an ease that defied gravity.
As the spire drew closer and closer, he began to notice something different about it. Along the base of it was an entanglement of webbing. Coroths eyes instantly widened in alarm, the thudding in his heart suddenly leaping alive as its beating was overheard from within to his very ears. A strain of worry flittered over his young stoic features. More and more as the webbing had been weaved along the contours of the spire in paths that led upwards, interlacing paths of shimmering dewy silk.
A growl overtook his worries, reminating within his jaws from within the cavity of his chest. Armor was still worn, his shield was unslung from behind him with a release of it's strap at his shoulder. A spear melancholodically was unweaved from its harness by his mirroring hand that brought it to bear and readiness. A stern, aggravated expression took over his thoughts. Thoughts that drew quiet from worrying briefly of the meaning, of the trespassing upon his home, and that of the other avriels who lived on lower levels of the spire elsewhere, and whether they were home..or even alive.
He would have called upon the elemental of the air to hasten his flight, but such aid was not his to beckon. The winds though, did embellish him with it's chaotic sense of humor, toying with him with a bellowing whisper that told him he had lost, that he was out of time.
A struggle of his wits overpassed his thoughts as he listened to such tormentful chidings that blew over the length of braided tendrils above his eyes. The beating of his wings pushed against the emptiness of the sky around him, plummeting him downwards and to the spire. In moments, he would finally arrive. The scratch of his talons etching against the stones of his balcony sounding with a distancing echo against the wall of stone that held the orifice leading into his home.
The sound of movement within was overheard, the feint, whimper of a female voice barely audible whispered through the air with a feint remnant of warmth that he breathed in, that he recognized and knew too well.
In a rush, Coroth sprinted through the entrance, within was the main chamber of his home. Within, were a half dozen arachnids of a size larger than that of a mere dog. Within, was a bundled body enwrapped in silk, and blood.
