Nyal’s talon did the best they could to keep up with Soliene as they ran further and further, but the distance between them was slowly increasing. Unlike the night Klaus had tried to kill her, it was becoming painfully obvious just how much more humans and Numaran were built for the ground. Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the same speed as the girl in front of her and she was really starting to wish that she could fly already.
Hearing movement from behind her, Nyal looked back to see what it was. She saw nothing directly behind her, but at the sound of a caw she looked up. Teolus was flying over, looking down at the harpen. Nyal followed their movement as they moved in front of her, keeping just close enough so the hen could see where he was.
That allowed her to let out a yelp of shock when Reonda sprinted past her. Nyal stopped in her tracks for a moment, Teolus not noticing and flying out of sight. She pouted, stomped a talon, and would have flapped her wings angrily if she wasn’t holding her Historia. With a pout on her face, she started running once again, only hoping that she could at least outsprint the soldiers.
“I swear to Me’re’thia’s chitin, as soon as I can fly I’m rubbing it in the face of every human I know,” She whispered to herself, more than a little annoyed. “I’m really starting to hate running.”
For minutes after, nothing else happened. Nyal wasn’t sure how far she had run into the forest or if any of the soldiers had gotten past Klaus – merely thinking of the man made her sick – but she wouldn’t take chances. Until she was certain Reonda and Soliene had stopped, she wouldn’t take any chances. No matter how tired she felt after what felt like an hour of running she kept moving until finally she had caught up with Reonda and Soliene.
Though at that point it was more like Reonda and Soliene were waiting for her.
All three of them were breathing heavily, Teolus watching from above on a tree branch. While the Acamian and Numaran stayed standing, Nyal fell to her knees and groaned in agony. As if to accentuate her frustration further, she purposefully fell face first into the ground. She let out another louder groan, incredibly done with the concepts known as walking and running.
“I miss… riding on the back… of the wagon,” She mumbled to herself through long breaths. She drew in a small bit of dirt in the process, gagged, and rolled onto her back.
“You… can’t fly… yet?” Soliene asked, just as out of breath as the Harpen. Nyal frowned and gave a nod. “Sorry.”
“Did we… lose them?” Reonda asked, leaning on the tree that Teolus had perched himself on.
“I hope so. Haven’t run… that much since… papa and I left home,” Soliene explained, sitting on the ground looking back in the direction that came from. “I’m sorry for getting you wrapped up in this.”
“It’s fine. You wanted this as little as the rest of us did,” Reonda replied. Her back slid down against the tree till she was sitting against it, bringing her knees close. “Any clue who that was? The women who contacted the guards?”
“No, and….” Soliene stopped speaking as soon as she started. She looked at Reonda with her head tilted to the side. “Wait, women?”
“You didn’t hear her? The one that called you “beastkin”?” Reonda responded, raising an eyebrow in confusion at Soliene’s behavior.
It took all of Soliene’s willpower to not get up, walk over to Reonda, and slap her. After what she had witnessed earlier that day she knew such an emotional response would not do any good. Besides, Reonda was Acamian, it only made sense that she didn’t understand those things just yet. Taking a deep breath, Soliene shook her head and decided that this wasn’t the time for explaining it all.
“Fucking Acamus. I knew it was backwards but… damn,” Soliene muttered in harparic. Nyal stared at her dumbly as she tried to think what could prompt such words. “I’ll explain that later. No, though, I don’t know him. I’m guessing I’m not the first Numaran he has seen.”
Silence fell upon them all for a bit, Reonda still looking at the Numaran at what she saw as a confusing use of pronouns. She didn’t press it, instead turning her attention to Teolus as he made his way from the tree branch to her side. She gave the hawk some scritches, watching as they leaned into her hand. Nyal, meanwhile, got back onto her talons and made her way over to Soliene. Sitting down right next to them, back against some shrubbery, she allowed the distraught and shock to finally set in.
“They… they were going to kill you, weren’t they?” Nyal asked. Soliene lowered her head and gave a solemn nod to the harpen. “Why? What did you do?”
“Nothing. At least nothing that I was in control of,” Soliene answered, fingers digging into the ground as she thought. “I probably stole from that man, but we Numaran aren’t supposed to be here in Reine so what choice do I have? I can’t get a job because of it, because that is basically a death sentence.”
Nyal’s brow rose as she heard that. “That is why you ask me to keep your heritage a secret.”
Soliene’s head only hung lower as she heard those words. Seeing she was in the shade, she took her hood and pulled it off her head for the first time since she had met the Acamian and harpen. It was the first time Nyal had really been able to see her white and black fur pattern, the latter making a mask around her eyes. The small, round ears that topped her head, would have made it believable she was fully Numaran if it wasn’t for her own words.
“To humans I don’t exactly look half human, and since everyone thinks my blood is pure Numaran I get treated like such,” Soliene explained to the hen. She forced her head to look upwards. “Only reason humans accept half-humans is because, at least from what I’ve gathered, it means less “feral blood” in their system. Fucks think we’re beasts just because we got fur and claws.”
“That… that doesn’t make any sense,” Nyal replied, looking at her Historia.
While Nyal wanted to say more, her mind was a whirlwind at what she saw as inconsistencies. She thought back to that final day with her parents, as well as many other days where the book had told her the same story. The story of how humans and Numarans fought side by side against her people to try and keep what had been their homeland. For them to be enemies now when they had previously been allies, it made no sense in her head. What had happened in all those years that the book never told her about?
At the sound of Nyal opening her Historia, Soliene and Reonda’s attention turned completely to her. The hen couldn’t help it, she needed an answer to her question and she was going to get one. Pressing her wing on a page she woke the Historia. Then, after a couple of seconds of thinking how to word her question, she spoke.
“Historia, what is the cause between the hatred of human a–”
She never finished her question, letting out a strangled cough as she felt something slide through her. The pages of the Historia were suddenly covered in blood, an intense pain resonating from the hens chest. She felt something warm dirty her mouth as she let out another cough, more blood joining what was already on the Historia’s pages. Her body quickly grew weaker, wings dropping the book to the ground as they went limped and she slumped forward. Her eyes caught on the source of her pain, and the source of the blood.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
A sword, once stainless, had ripped from one side of her body through the other. Now it had red on it, Nyal’s red, and confusion turned to fear as she felt her head start getting oddly heavy. The world blurred, she swore that she heard someone call for her but it seemed hard to hear for a reason she wasn’t sure. Then, in one smooth motion, the sword slid out of her body and Nyal fell to the ground, her mind weakening and vision fading as she came to terms with what was happening.
Then, as consciousness and life faded, a voice she could hear spoke out.
“No. I will not let this happen again. I will not let you die!”
----------------------------------------
“Nyal!”
The moment the sword had entered the harpen’s chest, Soliene felt her entire body freeze up once again. Her jaw hung open, she couldn’t remove her eyes from Nyal’s bloodied body, the lifeless stare the harpen gave her burning itself into the Numaran’s memory. It was like a nightmare came to life, and like many nightmares it all seemed to center around her. Every second that Nyal’s body stared at her it only became more and more clear in her mind that she was solely responsible for their demise.
Reonda, on the other hand, had seen so many humans, harpens, and Numaran die that, while looking at Nyal hurt, it phased her far less. That was not to say there was no fear in her eyes, a fear only compounded by the fact she could hear Il’jan’i laughing maniacally at the events that had just played out before her. Those laughs almost sounded lustful, and it took all of Reonda’s willpower to block the thought they were enjoying it that much. She went to stand up, reaching an arm out to Soliene as she knew what was likely next.
Yet the distance she had to cover was far more than that of her opponent.
Soliene felt an arm, covered in cold mail armor, wrap around her neck. The soldier, who Reonda remembered as Julius, lifted Soliene off the ground and pressed them against his chest. Try as Soliene might, she couldn’t free herself, feeling her ability to breath getting harder the longer the choke hold she was in lasted. Reonda tried to rush to the girl’s side and help free her, but the sight of Julius’ blood covered sword pointing at her kept her still.
“Stay right there fascist,” Julius ordered her, the last word filled with some much venom Reonda swore it might have actually been acidic. “Come any closer and I’ll gut the beastkin far worse than I did your slave.”
“Sir, I ask that you listen to me,” Reonda said, her voice filled with terror at what she knew was coming. “Let go of Soliene and r–”
Reonda’s word stopped as she saw Julius’ hold on Soliene’s throat get tighter. Though he didn’t speak, the Acamian was more than aware of what he was getting at. Eyes wide with fear, Reonda looked to Nyal’s corpse for a moment, noticing how some of the feathers on the hen started to get a light red tint to them. A tint that, with each passing moment grew more and more, brighter and brighter, looking molten but not incinerating. She didn’t have much time, and with speech out of the question she knew that all she could do was silently pray and watch.
“Do you have any idea what you are your kind has done to my family, ape?” Julius asked Soliene. The girl was unable to respond with words, the only sounds coming out being the sounds of short, heavy breathes. “My sister lives close to the border to New Numar, and one of your kind decided it would be fun to blind her. She’ll never see again because of you animals!” He turned his blade away from Reonda and to Soliene’s left eye, filling her vision with its blade. “So, since the captain isn’t here to stop me, consider this my revenge!”
As Julius struck, Reonda closed her eyes, unable to handle what was in front of her. Without sight she was stuck purely with sound, and it allowed two things to fill her mind’s eye. The first was Il’jan’i’s laughter, sounding crazed, lustful, and insane all at once. The second noise was that of Soliene’s scream of pain as Julius cut her left eye open, and that was all that Il’jan’i needed to get what she had so desperately wanted over the course of the past week.
The louder and louder it got, the more the scales started to re-emerge on her body, though this time far faster. As her eyes opened, Teolus squawked and took to the skies. The Acamian’s eyes were now crimson red with slitted pupils, and that meant one simple truth: Reonda was no longer the one in control.
Half-blinded, blood running from her eye socket, Soliene found the arm that had held her let go. She dropped to the floor, one hand catching the ground while the other covered the left side of her face. Drops of blood worked around her fingers and dripped onto the floor, and as she made the mistake of searching her eye she realized something. Where she should have felt her eye was now nothingness, instead leading to the black abyss known as the inside of her skull. Julius hadn’t just cut her eye open, he had freed it from her body.
She confirmed it when she saw what was once her left eye not far away… or at least it felt far away. She reached to grab it but the distance was longer than she expected and she ended up falling forward. In doing so, she found herself once again face to face with Nyal’s dead body, but something was strange about it. The early molten glow of her feathers had increased, and flames and sparks were now coming out of her body. It was to the point where she was no longer recognizable as the Nyal she knew.
“I must say, a rather beautiful display of brutality for a mortal. Yet there is one thing I greatly disagree with.”
Soliene turned behind her as she heard what sounded like a warped, twisted version of Reonda’s voice. What she saw was both clearly the Acamian and yet something very clearly not. White scales covered her lower arms and hands completely, black ones on the upper arms working their way onto her back and up her neck. Soliene noticed an appendage, a tail with black scales on the back and white scales on the underside, where there had been none previously. A strange aura of light and darkness started to cover the girl, and with her back turned to the Numaran any other details could not be grasped.
What she could grasp, however, was the dark chuckle that escaped the girl as she pressed her clawed hands into the soldier she held by the stomach. That should have been impossible with the size difference and Soliene, just as she knew the mail the soldier wore should have kept the Acamian’s claws from tearing into his stomach. Julius looked on in terror at the sight of what he could only call a demon before him, serpent-like eyes looking at him with a smile of inhuman teeth. With the pain that came from her claws ripping into his stomach, his panicking mind could only rationalize that he was in a nightmare.
“A monster doesn’t need an excuse to maim and brutalize, just as a human doesn’t need a puppy’s permission to pet it,” the creature inhabiting Reonda’s body replied. “You need no reason to kill, to disable, to pulverize all around you and drink the sweet sweet nectar your kind calls blood,” The last word was nearly moaned, making both Julie and Soliene increasingly uncomfortable. “It’s only too bad you choose the wrong blood to spill. My vessel needs that beastkin alive, and while I would love nothing more than to rip her fur open I can’t allow you to do just that.”
“What… what are yo- ack?”
Julius’s question was interrupted as the creature holding him stuck her hand clean through his armor and through his flesh. Soliene looked away as blood not only covered the creature’s scaled arm but dripped from the hole they left as they removed said arm from Julius’ insides. They then brought the Soldier close to their face, Soliene glancing back just enough where all she could see was the once human body of Reonda. Before giving her answer, the creature caresses the soldier’s face with her blood covered hand until red stained most of his cheek.
“You want to know who I am? Well I guess it only is fair for me to tell you who it is that is about to kill you,” the creature said, a force of dark and light energy starting to encircle her and Julius as she spoke. “I am Il’jan’i, your future Oracle of Balance.”
With those words, the energy Il’jan’i summoned whipped into a gale around her. Soliene had tried to block the sudden gale with her arm not covering her eyeless socket, looking away due to its intensity. As the energy grew, it shrouded all in darkness, leaving the Numaran unable to register what was going on. She did not realize that her bleeding had stopped, the sound of wind all her ears could hear and all her mind could notice. After a whole minute of ear deafening wind, the energy suddenly faded away, and the first thing Soliene heard was a growl from behind her.
Daring to look back, what Soliene saw was no longer a girl but a giant, scaled, winged beast. The same black and white scales wrapped around the body that had previously been Reonda. The former wrapped themselves from the top of their snout to the tip of their tail. The white scales adorning the lower part of their legs and underbelly. Wicked claws adorned its paws, two horns looking like they could gouge even the toughest animal’s skin on its head. The last part were giant, massive black leathery wings that the beast stretched out, letting out a roar as it did.
The giant beast, Il’jan’i, looked at the soldier held beneath her paws. Julius was still conscious, the energy that had caused the transformation healing his stomach. He stared into the predatory eyes that looked back at him, watching as Il’jan’i slowly opened her muzzle to reveal giant, carnivorous teeth. As the beast bent her neck down so that said teeth were around his neck, Julius tried desperately to remove the paw that held him down. It proved useless as Il’jan’i weighed far too much for his feeble arms to lift a single part of her form. Then, with her maw around his brittle neck, Il’jan’i grabbed it with her teeth and twisted it.
Snap!
Soliene let out a gasp of terror at the horrific noise, watching as the soldier’s hands fell away from Il’jan’i’s forelegs and to the ground. That same dark chuckle from earlier came out of Il’jan’i’s muzzle, but there was no longer a hint of Reonda’s voice. The voice that came out instead was raspy, deep, still clearly feminine but having an obvious touch of crazy to it. With her prey dead, the beast removed the paw over his chest and ripped into him with her teeth. Soliene tried to get to her feet, but the moment she did she was met with the sudden piercing gaze of Il’jan’i’s reptilian eyes, her maw holding the dead man’s intestines.
“Now now, don’t run little Soliene,” Il’jan’i told her. “We’ve only just met after all, and my sister would surely love to meet you as much as I.”