Zulema remained silent. Despite knowing her language, the presence before her was dangerously inhuman. There was no emotion in its voice, almost as if it were a creature mimicking human speech. Its movements shifting and deforming the intrusive darkness around it. She kept herself pinned to the wall, rapidly trying to formulate a plan of escape.
Before long, the entity standing in the atramentous shadows of the room finally cast its suffocating gaze on her. Twin pinholes of silvery white felt as if they were suddenly pushing down on her chest, narrowing to a point where it pierced her body like a knife plunging into her heart—causing her to forcibly stifle a blood-curdling scream that continued to ring in her head long after. She was sure he could see her, somehow, in the deep dark.
"Come out from the black," the sundering voice bellowed.
Panicked, she broke into a sprint, aiming toward the brief space between the sinister aberration and the door. Unexpectedly, she succeeded in squeezing through. The figure's lumbering form moving very little to impede her. But a few steps from the exit, she found herself crashing into a pillowy wall of snow that appeared seemingly from nowhere.
"There is no need to run. It would not avail you to lose yourself in the wilderness instead of where you know it is already safe."
Zulema spun around and pressed herself against the wall behind her. Her heart was racing and despite her shallow wheezing, she was still able to shout through rapid breaths.
"Get away from me!" Her throat had quickly dried out from the frigid air, causing her to cough uncontrollably.
"Take note of your surroundings. There is no other life around," the shadow from within the small room spoke ominously. "You should understand you have little recourse. However, I mean you no harm. I require one of Macha's touched such as you to assist me in an important endeavor."
"What are you talking about? You need a priestess of the Scarlet Church? Why didn't you simply come to the city and ask directly? Do you think I'd aid someone who would kidnap and imprison a Scarlet Sister?!"
"It is not that simple. These things never are."
"Goddess damn you, at least have the decency to show yourself when you ask for my help!"
The shining ivory gaze of the impending figure standing in the dark watched her for a few moments before deciding what to do. He seemed reluctant about something, despite his previous forwardness.
"You'll listen earnestly? You won't attempt to run this time?"
Zulema's fingers pressed angrily into the snow behind her. "That depends."
"Very well." Crouching once again under the doorframe, the stranger emerged from the darkness and into the gray light of day. For the tiniest fraction of a second, the priestess could swear she saw a hideously monstrous visage on his massive shoulders as he turned to look at her. But in the instant after she blinked her single eye, he looked no different from a man. A rough complexion almost as pale as the ice itself, a chiseled jaw and rugged brow. His hair and eyes were as completely white as the snow, but he lacked the defining wrinkles of an elderly man. He looked only a decade older at most. As his sturdy frame inched closer with heavy, gradual steps, a powerful arm reached out from beneath the darkness of the all-encompassing fur cloak that surrounded him. What initially appeared as a frightful behemoth to her, now revealed a stately, well-built man.
The priestess's grip on the snow loosened, somehow causing the wall of snow to come tumbling down behind her. Now that she could see him clearly, she found him surprisingly handsome. As she reached out her hand to his, a momentary detail caused her to immediately recoil. Through the frosted white of the snow around them, her lone functioning eye finally focused and glimpsed the antlers growing from his head.
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The contrasting beauty of the oddity left her awestruck. Twisting, outward bones reflecting nethermost lights from an unknown, ethereal sea—that for a second looked almost beautiful, like a halo made of glacial light. Slowly, once again, she reached for his hand. Her delicate fingers found no warmth in a grasp that seemed powerful enough to pulverize her into dust. She allowed him to pull her closer, watching him with rigid trepidation.
"Who exactly are you?" Zulema's words came out coldly.
"I am the thing that walks on the wind.” A numbing gust coursed through the air as he spoke, forcing the priestess to hold down her hair and dress. “The august exiled Ithaqua. Tempest-Shaper. He Who Lustrates in the Frozen White Silence of the Arrested Dawn and Begetter of the Ulter Hyaline Spheres.”
“Madness’s sake! What kind of a fool are you? Did I ask you for your damned life story?”
“…Among many other names,” he continued.
“Right.” She eyed him awkwardly. “In that case, I’m Zulema. Or Zula, if you prefer.”
“There is much power in names. You should not give yours so freely.”
“I don’t recall asking for your opinion, you frozen fiend.” She pondered for a moment. “…What do you suggest then?”
“An assumed moniker, perhaps?”
“I’ll consider it.” She continued to glare up at him for a few seconds before turning on her heel and casting a depressive gaze downward. “You saved me, didn't you? Why?”
“You had a familiar scent about you.”
“That’s a very gross expression.”
The suspicious man made a small grunt in response.
“Well, you aren’t exactly the knight in shining armor I was expecting.” The priestess finally cracked a momentary smile. A certain nagging feeling had been surfacing in between the throbbing pains in her head. She gasped as another memory crashed to the front of her mind. The question of the final fate of her partner still hung in the air. “Lucy! Where is she?! You saved her too, didn’t you?! She was bleeding so much!”
“There was no one else there I could see,” stated Derleth. “One of you is enough to serve my purposes.”
“What the fuck do you mean?!” screamed Zulema. She turned towards the endless maze of trees. “I have to go find her!”
“That would be very ill-advised. The only thing you will accomplish is getting lost if you decide to travel out there.” Unbeknownst to Zulema, an ivory gaze was glaring at the back of her head. The wind picked up again. “If she was bleeding as profusely as you claim, I sincerely doubt you would reach her in time—if it’s not already too late.”
Zulema was apprehensive. She was unsure of how to continue. She clasped her hands together. “M-Maybe Marie—Maybe she was able to find her in time. Lucy is probably recuperating as we speak… We’ll be laughing about this soon. Surely.” The sound of her teeth grinding was blocked out by the wind.
“Come, Orphan of Macha.” He motioned for her to join him. “There is much to discuss.”
“I—No! You…You’re some kind of monster. For all I know, you’re working with the enemy! You cannot stop me from saving who I must!” Zulema looked at him with a growing fear in her eyes, then quickly fled into the forest labyrinth, hampered this time only by several gusts of frozen air and snow. It didn’t take long before her body finally inexplicably succumbed to the adverse effects of the frigid environment. All at once, the ice burned at her naked feet while her body shivered uncontrollably. She dropped feebly to her knees, suddenly finding it difficult to keep her body in motion. A set of rapid breaths escaped her as she struggled to feel even the slightest hint of warmth coming from the air in her lungs. Instead, she felt only more pain—the moisture in her mouth slowly freezing dry. She watched as her fingers turned blue before tumbling down onto her side, teeth chattering noisily as her body huddled stiffly in a pathetic attempt to survive the inevitable. Her eyelashes repeatedly froze over, making it painfully troublesome to keep her eye open. The priestess was finding it hard to find reason with what she had attempted to do.
She heard something fall from a great height and land nearby.
“I warned you, did I not?” The young priestess heard an unsettlingly resonant voice calling out to her, in the direction she had run from. An odious, clawed hand—bigger than any man’s—wrapped itself around her. A noisome stench attacked her nostrils. The insidious voice behind her now boomed right in her ear, becoming fiercer and more guttural as it continued. “There is NO ESCAPE FROM THIS.”