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Sinmi'li
The forest was white and dark. Small groves of Jai’s home could barely compare to the overwhelming maze of branches above him. They arched like windows of a gothic cathedral, silent and menacing by the virtue of sheer size.
Moonlight shone in tiny streams. There were thousands of streams, thousands of massive trees, and thousands of snowy mounds on the bottom of it all.
In the vastness of that landscape, Jai felt small. What remained of his healthy musculature was near frozen, his were eyes glazed over and his back hunched. A trail of his footsteps was the only clear sign of direction.
It was hard to guess how much time had slipped without his knowledge or care, while he mindlessly stumbled forward driven by instinct. Similarly difficult was the estimation of how much time he had remaining. It was a perfect plan, he recalled. To trick the geese, to scale the pit, and to run the dogs. Perhaps it wasn’t a fault of the plan, but rather of the idea behind it. He just shouldn’t have ran away, but at least he made a good effort. Yes, at least he could tell himself that he tried.
Jai didn’t stop, but with such a slow pace, it was easy enough to regain a bit of consciousness, look, and comprehend what was around him.
Instead of an unfocused gaze, his eyes now carefuly inspected how his skin grew a pale shade of violet and began flaking off in places, showing bloodless flesh underneath. His right leg didn’t quite respond to his commands, and his left arm was stiff, unmoving as it clutched whatever torn piece of fabric he draped over his shoulders. Some kind of decorative tapestry perhaps. A carpet. Or a gobelin? Why did people have to call it a different name just because it was supposed to be hung on a wall anyway?
Jai was not ignorant about how he had been trying to veer into useless tangents, thinking about unrelated topics rather than his impending death. At first he had to actively distract himself from it so he wouldn’t panic, but at some point it started to feel easier to just stop thinking about it.
It wasn’t that hard to notice how his thoughts began to feel sluggish and stuttery, like a gasoline engine running off fumes. It was almost as if there was more to the burning cold around him than just low temperature.
He came back to reality. Something was wrong.
‘I stopped..?’
With the sole sound of his crunching footsteps now gone, the woods grew silent. Uncomfortably so.
A sudden whine made him try and turn his head around. Jai succeeded only at the third attempt due to the state his body was in. Still, he managed to get a good angle and look at the beast.
It looked somehow familiar. Up to his waist in height, with six legs, long snout that oozed blood from it’s nostrils, patches of brown fur missing from it’s coat, and a tail hanging limp behind it. It made to let out another yelp, but it’s strength was obviously fading. Whatever peculiar vocal cords did the beast have made it sound ethereal. It met Jai’s gaze with hate in it’s purely black eyes, and opened a maw only half full of sharp teeth. The rest was embedded in some poor souls’ body, he guessed. Perhaps he used to know them too.
As it lumbered to him, he felt confused, but also sorry for the creature. Whatever it was… it was wrong to be like this. It wasn’t supposed to look this way. It wasn’t supposed to be hurt, in pain, was it?
‘What is it anyway?’ He thought he knew, but apparently he didn’t anymore, and nobody was there to answer his question. When he tried to remember, he felt… cold.
The horrifying alien dog-thing closed in with unsteady steps, more than one of it’s legs having problems to follow. At three meter distance, two meaty appendages untangled from the back of it’s head. In Jai’s mind, they looked a bit like spaghetti. Or noodles.
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‘I’d love some instant noodles. With a chicken broth or something...’
One of the creature’s two tentacles fell off in the process of extending. With an ugly sound of frozen meat, it’s base snapped, and only a stump remained while the rest fell into the snow beneath. The other one looked marginally better, with some fur still left to protect it from the cold, and it’s end showing some kind of jaw. It reminded Jai of horror artwork and cheap sci-fi movies.
The creature let out another pained whine while the remaining appendage tried to reach Jai’s body, but it’s legs gave away too soon, and the creature fell on it’s side, now unmoving except for the irregular rise and fall of it’s chest. Jai’s thoughts grew even less coherent as he saw blood slowly leaking out of it’s body and colouring the snow deep red.
He felt at loss about what to do. What was the animal in front of him? Where was he?
Who was he?
In the spur of the moment, he took a few steps forward before colapsing as well. One of the last memories that he managed to recall told him precisely what to do in such a situation.
With great difficulty, he lifted his hand, and put it on the sorry creature’s head, trying to rub it behind it’s ears. That’s how dogs were consoled, afterall.
“That’s a...” A few gasping bearths broke up the sentence. “...good boy! Everything… ’ll be… okay now.”
And so, Jaine Meriann ceased to live.
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Razrin'ea
A woman sat on a heavy throne of rock.
It was an ugly thing. Thick, blocky, and riddled with dirty green veins of some mineral.
Meanwhile, the woman in queston was quite the opposite. Long hair with repeating stripes of green shades, perfect marble skin, and proportions that could make many weak-willed people question their marriages.
Perhaps the only flaw was her expression - tired.
The woman’s eyes were barely open, not even bothering to track whatever happened around her. The profound aura of apathy and exhaustion made the cavern’s air stale and heavy.
Suddenly, her pupils contracted and shifted towards the entrance of the cave. A loud, joyous voice boomed and reverberated in the enclosed space. “Helloo-o!”
It was pitch black, but she didn’t need help in spotting the familiar person brazenly barging into her home without an invitation.
“Aw, Cyri… how long has it been..? Ages!” The thin man exclaimed with an echo from the rough stone walls. His mane of perfectly straight, pitch black hair was reaching down his waist before he pushed it over a shoulder. “I see you still didn’t think to make a bed. Or anything more comfortable than just a slab of rock, really. What about a rocking chair? Hah, get it? A rocking chair!”
The woman remained still.
He caughed a little, calming down his antics. “Well, I’ve been around by chance, and thought I’d drop by. How are you holding up?"
The woman remained still.
“Ah, I guess I should ask - how are you holding down? Hehe…”
The woman remained still, and the awkward silence stretched.
“Anyway! I brought you a present.”
He allowed himself a genuine, warm smile, before producing an ornate hairpin out of thin air. She turned her haze towards it, and the corners of her eyes creased ever so slightly.
The craftsmanship could not be called anything less than sublime; It had a silver body with a decorative golden top, adorned with gemstones and stylized into an image of a blooming flower. Albeit lacking the telltale lines of wizard script, the heaviness she felt from it was unmistakeable. It was not that the artist could not imbue it with power properly, it was just that he chose not to.
Cyrianne blinked once, looking towards her friend, who’s smile widened in turn. “I’m so glad you like it. Want me to help and style your hair a little, like the old times?”
The woman’s expression suddenly fell back to what it used to be in the past few centuries. Apathy.
She turned to look blankly forward, and the man’s demeanor changed. The small spark of hope was once again snuffed out.
“Well then… I’ll just leave it here, as usual…” he said, carrying the hairpin in front of her, and carefully placing it on the cold stone floor alongside dozens of other objects.
“Happy birthday…”
Jewels, books, precious wines and an array of natural treasures lay undisturbed on the barren stone in front of the woman as her only friend turned to leave.
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