Ymiden 5th. The Untold.
Continues from here.
"Can it even hear us?" Cold asked, sniffing at the glistening black creature. It stared back at him with seven suspicious eyes, half of which narrowed as it growled. "It doesn't have ears."
"It doesn't need them," he replied. "I don't think." The rest of the wolves stared and circled the thing with varying degrees of interest. Vabina had been the first to lose interest entirely and instead had perched herself on a large floating crystal that hung high above. Inexplicably, there were a lot of them in this particular section of the Untold. They didn't seem to serve any function, they weren't even anchored to anything - they just hung in nothingness, the smallest about the size of a single tooth, while the largest, Vabina's perch, could have comfortably fit all eight of them, and the creature as well. He nudged one aside as it floated too close, a thin shard no longer than a single paw, tainting the vibrant lights of the Emeascape a deep purple as it passed through. "It's an Emean Being. I don't think they can be limited by what they are. They're just... whatever they want."
That was why it could change itself at will, creating, mimicking, adapting. Except it didn't always mimic, it... it used them for inspiration. Adding the parts it liked, experimenting with different body shapes - putting a wolf's body on a Zephyrus head, and then vice versa, then creating a wolf with a Zephyrus tail, until it was picking apart the individual details, all the way down to shaping claws, pawpad shapes, bizarre ears of its own that curved at the base like Vabina's, but then pulled to a pointed tip like Cold. "I like it!" Cyshe grinned suddenly, spinning gently in the air. Of course she would. The water-spirit and the creature moved in nearly the same fashion, floating and flowing like liquids. It didn't seem to show the same enthusiasm, though. Upon locking eyes with her, it seemed like even more teeth sprouted from its gaping maw, before it launched itself at her. Time almost seemed to slow as the wolves turned, a singular thought sparking through all their minds simultaneously - attack.
Obviously his first thought was to stop them. Nothing good could come from senseless violence like this, the whole reason they'd hunted down this creature was to communicate with it, to learn from it-- but wait, hadn't they already established that it communicated through violence? Therefore... he needed to stop thinking like a mortal for just a break. Stop thinking normally. Just embrace the moment. They'd made friends first, through a mutual bite. What happened when he overdid it and threw everything he had?
Greyhide reached it first, being the first to react. His teeth sunk into the back of its neck and yanked it back, mere inches from snapping shut around Cyshe's whip-like tail. Before it could reach out with its paws, Cold snapped down on one, nearly shearing straight through its fluid mass, and Squeak took the other when it lifted to strike, wrenching it back at an angle normal bones shouldn't have been able to accommodate, but just made the creature growl even louder. Myrth locked jaws tight around one of the hands flailing atop its head, squeezing until black ichor dribbled around her lips, and made a threatening noise deep in the back of her throat. Vabina, owing to her massive size, clamped her jaws all the way around its middle, sinking sabre-like fangs deep into its midsection with an especially loud cry unlike anything he'd ever heard it make. Besides Archailist and Cyshe herself, there was only one person left. Restrained as it was, the creature made all sorts of strange, feral noises as he approached, struggling in the unyielding grip of the five other beasts. It wasn't just struggling physically; through five points of contact, they could feel the tickle of vague visions, like memories they'd forgotten suddenly bubbling to the surface. Two people, fighting with their fists. Slipping and falling from a tree. The pain of stubbing a toe on a table leg. These were fainter than the ones before; this time it wasn't a two-way stream. This was everything pushed down onto it.
Strange to say, but he'd always approached training an animal the same way he would befriending it. Providing them with food, water, shelter, care. He was glad to say he'd rarely resorted to real acts of violence against them, since in his experience and that of his peers, it never amounted to a real relationship. Even knowing that this thing wasn't like the creatures he'd become used to, even knowing that the only way to approach this was through the force he'd been reluctant to enforce for so long, he hesitated. However, this wasn't a question of morals, this was a question of survival. If he wanted to make it back to Idalos, he needed every advantage he could find. Willing or otherwise. His moral compass would not be the one to show him the way back.
He sank his teeth into the creature's throat, sandwiching it between himself and Greyhide. Six points of contact, trapping it on all sides from escape. Images, memories and thoughts not his own swarmed and battered him as it struggled in their combined grip to break free, but collectively they tightened and held on, reinforcing their strength, their command. What it had felt before was a taste. This was everything he was, the full weight of his being.
The thing screeched, frustrated and angry in its most pure form, but its fury paled in comparison to their combined force and it stumbled, the overlapping voices petering out and dying in its throat.
After a moment of silence to collect themselves, Nir'wei released his grip and turned away, mentally requesting for the others to do the same, to various responses of confusion. Reluctantly, they obliged. The thing made a noise in its throat that it never had before, a soft churring that seemed to roll through its entire body at once and making its 'skin' visibly tremble. Once again, he was reminded just how wrong this thing was on every level. Its body language assured him that it was properly cowed after their confrontation, with its arm-like tendrils drooping and its head held low; yet the noises it made and its behavior towards the others seemed friendly, almost content. Could it not tell the difference between a reward and a punishment? Or had he just been reading everything horribly wrong, yet again. All he could say was that it hadn't run away, therefore they must have done something right in progressing a meaningful relationship. Nor did it attack Cyshe anymore when she emerged again.
Left alone, it was just... curious. Occasionally 'playful', though its version of playing was almost indistinguishable from fighting, right down to angry snarls and lashing limbs. Shows of dominance and suppression by two, sometimes three of the five beasts sent it backing away after its first lesson. For something that seemed to understand nothing but violence, this, at least, talked to it on roughly the same wavelength. The only times it refrained from aggression, oddly, was approaching Vabina during one of her many pseudo cat-naps. All of them, barring Cyshe and Archailist of course, still felt some lingering need for sleep, but of course being in Emea made such things unnecessary and impossible. Instead it was something like a brief rest, like holding their eyes closed for a moment and feeling brief, fleeting flashes of hallucinatory 'dreams' passing through their heads. Pseudo-sleep, at best, however, he knew without asking that they all suffered from the same problems. Nightmares. Reliving their deaths. Memories of their darkest moments, thoughts spurned by the void and the impending sense of dread it always brought, staring into infinite nothingness and knowing that everything they had ever thought they'd known was barely a hint of a hint of the true scope of their dimension.
Which made it so strange when it took fascination in it. Vabina, tossing and turning in her 'sleep', growling at nothing in particular. It sniffed at her and the spot above her head, arm-like tendrils waving animatedly, as if searching for something. Then it bit her. Not like it had the others; this was gentle, slow, as if struggling to avoid waking her. The result was almost immediate. The struggling, the faint growling grew still and serene, as if leeched out. An ethereal glow grew under the creature's black skin, as if a candle had been lit inside of it. "It's eating her dreams," Archailist mumbled from nearby. "It's what drew it to you in the first place."
Finally understanding what it truly was, and what it wanted, helped break the ice from there. It fed from all their dreams in turn, whenever they tried to sleep. When Nir'wei 'slept' that night, it was a brief, dreamless and thoughtless moment. Like closing his eyes one moment and opening them the next, aware of the passage of time but nothing more than that. At any other time he might have detested that the thing had accessed his thoughts, messing with his head in ways even he really didn't understand - but for now, he was just happy for the reprieve the thing offered him. With an unspoken agreement forged from the necessities they offered one-another, there was only one thing left to seal their arrangement. If it was going to be spending a lot more time with them, they all needed something a little better than just 'that black thing' to refer to it with.
"Sage," Squeak offered abruptly.
"You really think so?" Nir'wei chuckled, looking back to the churring creature as it shuffled the arms hanging from its head, making them each flex and twist in turn, as if counting them. "Doesn't look very wise to me."
"No, like the herb!" Oh. Well that made a lot more sense, he thought ruefully. "Because it smells like it." He'd never really bothered to get a sniff on the thing, but he took Squeak's word for it and chuckled to himself at the thought. Sage it was.
Continues from here.
"Can it even hear us?" Cold asked, sniffing at the glistening black creature. It stared back at him with seven suspicious eyes, half of which narrowed as it growled. "It doesn't have ears."
"It doesn't need them," he replied. "I don't think." The rest of the wolves stared and circled the thing with varying degrees of interest. Vabina had been the first to lose interest entirely and instead had perched herself on a large floating crystal that hung high above. Inexplicably, there were a lot of them in this particular section of the Untold. They didn't seem to serve any function, they weren't even anchored to anything - they just hung in nothingness, the smallest about the size of a single tooth, while the largest, Vabina's perch, could have comfortably fit all eight of them, and the creature as well. He nudged one aside as it floated too close, a thin shard no longer than a single paw, tainting the vibrant lights of the Emeascape a deep purple as it passed through. "It's an Emean Being. I don't think they can be limited by what they are. They're just... whatever they want."
That was why it could change itself at will, creating, mimicking, adapting. Except it didn't always mimic, it... it used them for inspiration. Adding the parts it liked, experimenting with different body shapes - putting a wolf's body on a Zephyrus head, and then vice versa, then creating a wolf with a Zephyrus tail, until it was picking apart the individual details, all the way down to shaping claws, pawpad shapes, bizarre ears of its own that curved at the base like Vabina's, but then pulled to a pointed tip like Cold. "I like it!" Cyshe grinned suddenly, spinning gently in the air. Of course she would. The water-spirit and the creature moved in nearly the same fashion, floating and flowing like liquids. It didn't seem to show the same enthusiasm, though. Upon locking eyes with her, it seemed like even more teeth sprouted from its gaping maw, before it launched itself at her. Time almost seemed to slow as the wolves turned, a singular thought sparking through all their minds simultaneously - attack.
Obviously his first thought was to stop them. Nothing good could come from senseless violence like this, the whole reason they'd hunted down this creature was to communicate with it, to learn from it-- but wait, hadn't they already established that it communicated through violence? Therefore... he needed to stop thinking like a mortal for just a break. Stop thinking normally. Just embrace the moment. They'd made friends first, through a mutual bite. What happened when he overdid it and threw everything he had?
Greyhide reached it first, being the first to react. His teeth sunk into the back of its neck and yanked it back, mere inches from snapping shut around Cyshe's whip-like tail. Before it could reach out with its paws, Cold snapped down on one, nearly shearing straight through its fluid mass, and Squeak took the other when it lifted to strike, wrenching it back at an angle normal bones shouldn't have been able to accommodate, but just made the creature growl even louder. Myrth locked jaws tight around one of the hands flailing atop its head, squeezing until black ichor dribbled around her lips, and made a threatening noise deep in the back of her throat. Vabina, owing to her massive size, clamped her jaws all the way around its middle, sinking sabre-like fangs deep into its midsection with an especially loud cry unlike anything he'd ever heard it make. Besides Archailist and Cyshe herself, there was only one person left. Restrained as it was, the creature made all sorts of strange, feral noises as he approached, struggling in the unyielding grip of the five other beasts. It wasn't just struggling physically; through five points of contact, they could feel the tickle of vague visions, like memories they'd forgotten suddenly bubbling to the surface. Two people, fighting with their fists. Slipping and falling from a tree. The pain of stubbing a toe on a table leg. These were fainter than the ones before; this time it wasn't a two-way stream. This was everything pushed down onto it.
Strange to say, but he'd always approached training an animal the same way he would befriending it. Providing them with food, water, shelter, care. He was glad to say he'd rarely resorted to real acts of violence against them, since in his experience and that of his peers, it never amounted to a real relationship. Even knowing that this thing wasn't like the creatures he'd become used to, even knowing that the only way to approach this was through the force he'd been reluctant to enforce for so long, he hesitated. However, this wasn't a question of morals, this was a question of survival. If he wanted to make it back to Idalos, he needed every advantage he could find. Willing or otherwise. His moral compass would not be the one to show him the way back.
He sank his teeth into the creature's throat, sandwiching it between himself and Greyhide. Six points of contact, trapping it on all sides from escape. Images, memories and thoughts not his own swarmed and battered him as it struggled in their combined grip to break free, but collectively they tightened and held on, reinforcing their strength, their command. What it had felt before was a taste. This was everything he was, the full weight of his being.
The thing screeched, frustrated and angry in its most pure form, but its fury paled in comparison to their combined force and it stumbled, the overlapping voices petering out and dying in its throat.
After a moment of silence to collect themselves, Nir'wei released his grip and turned away, mentally requesting for the others to do the same, to various responses of confusion. Reluctantly, they obliged. The thing made a noise in its throat that it never had before, a soft churring that seemed to roll through its entire body at once and making its 'skin' visibly tremble. Once again, he was reminded just how wrong this thing was on every level. Its body language assured him that it was properly cowed after their confrontation, with its arm-like tendrils drooping and its head held low; yet the noises it made and its behavior towards the others seemed friendly, almost content. Could it not tell the difference between a reward and a punishment? Or had he just been reading everything horribly wrong, yet again. All he could say was that it hadn't run away, therefore they must have done something right in progressing a meaningful relationship. Nor did it attack Cyshe anymore when she emerged again.
Left alone, it was just... curious. Occasionally 'playful', though its version of playing was almost indistinguishable from fighting, right down to angry snarls and lashing limbs. Shows of dominance and suppression by two, sometimes three of the five beasts sent it backing away after its first lesson. For something that seemed to understand nothing but violence, this, at least, talked to it on roughly the same wavelength. The only times it refrained from aggression, oddly, was approaching Vabina during one of her many pseudo cat-naps. All of them, barring Cyshe and Archailist of course, still felt some lingering need for sleep, but of course being in Emea made such things unnecessary and impossible. Instead it was something like a brief rest, like holding their eyes closed for a moment and feeling brief, fleeting flashes of hallucinatory 'dreams' passing through their heads. Pseudo-sleep, at best, however, he knew without asking that they all suffered from the same problems. Nightmares. Reliving their deaths. Memories of their darkest moments, thoughts spurned by the void and the impending sense of dread it always brought, staring into infinite nothingness and knowing that everything they had ever thought they'd known was barely a hint of a hint of the true scope of their dimension.
Which made it so strange when it took fascination in it. Vabina, tossing and turning in her 'sleep', growling at nothing in particular. It sniffed at her and the spot above her head, arm-like tendrils waving animatedly, as if searching for something. Then it bit her. Not like it had the others; this was gentle, slow, as if struggling to avoid waking her. The result was almost immediate. The struggling, the faint growling grew still and serene, as if leeched out. An ethereal glow grew under the creature's black skin, as if a candle had been lit inside of it. "It's eating her dreams," Archailist mumbled from nearby. "It's what drew it to you in the first place."
Finally understanding what it truly was, and what it wanted, helped break the ice from there. It fed from all their dreams in turn, whenever they tried to sleep. When Nir'wei 'slept' that night, it was a brief, dreamless and thoughtless moment. Like closing his eyes one moment and opening them the next, aware of the passage of time but nothing more than that. At any other time he might have detested that the thing had accessed his thoughts, messing with his head in ways even he really didn't understand - but for now, he was just happy for the reprieve the thing offered him. With an unspoken agreement forged from the necessities they offered one-another, there was only one thing left to seal their arrangement. If it was going to be spending a lot more time with them, they all needed something a little better than just 'that black thing' to refer to it with.
"Sage," Squeak offered abruptly.
"You really think so?" Nir'wei chuckled, looking back to the churring creature as it shuffled the arms hanging from its head, making them each flex and twist in turn, as if counting them. "Doesn't look very wise to me."
"No, like the herb!" Oh. Well that made a lot more sense, he thought ruefully. "Because it smells like it." He'd never really bothered to get a sniff on the thing, but he took Squeak's word for it and chuckled to himself at the thought. Sage it was.
