…..:::::|. Clouds Forest North .|:::::…..
The lot searching wildly for her, caught up to a sobbing Kodlaa muttering curses against a tree. Siin rushed her and cradled the woman.
Kodlaa wailed into his arms a string of no's and plea's. He looked back to the men and foxen women expectantly. They nodded their way on.
...
Halycind couldn't see out of one eye but she stood, aching and fatefully sure she was dying. But she stood and held her blade with a death's grip.
“I know what you are.” She called to it as it stalked her in the mists. “And though they say you can't die, I will surely take your life with me.”
“Oh, but sweet one...no one's ever killed a Ghostgale!” It snarled bringing its low stalking voice close. “Not even of your order.”
It rushed an open maw to her to crunch down on the girl but Halycind's senses swept her from it. In one swift movement the willful woman struck the ribs of its hide as she dodged. No cut was left in its wake only skidding drags across its scales and sliced fur followed her movement.
A natural armour. She sank in her heart and hopelessness almost took her. The threat of death drew in on her will. Then she remembered herself. She'd seen death before. Much of it. Sat in it. Soaked in a bloody field of the dead.
“Give me your spirit, child!”
The haze of its voice caught senses in her mind much like the small haunts of her kin. The vision in her working eye blurred to violet tints as it spoke.
“Let me have what keeps you standing!” The Ghostgale was trying to bid her as its brethren bid Siin, but she was wolvkin...and mad.
“Get out of my head.”
“I can see all of your little secrets, pup!”
“Away from me!”
“And my do you have a passion.”
There was a fire burning in her memory. One that smelled of florals and citrus. “You better be right about this, Siin.” She prayed.
The violet was starting to cloud her good eye and desperate thoughts jumped to her mind. “If you can haunt my mind...perhaps I can haunt yours.” And just as she spoke, a rush of sweeping force like storm winds crossed her face and the whole forest lit to a bright purple. She could see it as if there were no mists at all, trees, grasses, scurrying creatures, forms of things lit to glowing. And she saw the whole of the Ghostgale’s aura, a fiery violet lambency; large and looming in front of her.
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Ah! There's the Carabaaniel force I wanted to see! He spoke to her only in her mind now and she stood strong against the winds of his thoughts. She was pressing him with her own heaving will. Ah, that’s it! Fight me Shieldsdottir!
Don't call me that. You don't know me.
But it is so strong within you. The immortal blood of your father, with none of its ever-living benefits. It cackled its derision.
I like it that way.
Ha, do you?
Halycind could see its breaths, heaving, and noticed only one separation, the skin of its belly revealing itself between its scales. It would be thin there. Its skin.
Even now you crave the closeness of Immortal Power. His love. His attention. He let his words echo through her. Yet you only claim your mother's Carabaaniel allegiance. Because you hate your fath--
Why mind what my allegiances are? Something that trivial shouldn't concern a beast such as you. She thought of the blade in her hand made of folded metals so pure they saw no rust nor cracked from impact nor pitted from concoction. Her people made swords from the traditions borne in the White Era. Traditions passed down from smith to smith in Carabaaniel forges.
A mortal should think fondly of home...before it dies.
She gripped tighter her sword and readied her broken body for a burst of desperation. Then you should have looked deeper...what I had at home is already dead.
A ragged cry from her throat burst so loud on the winds the searchers reeled from its shrieking shrill and they tried to mark her location. She was very far away but they now knew she lived and were spurred on to find her.
The Ghostgale, whom she'd fought with for far too long, for her cracked and bleeding body to bear, suffered the splitting peel of its mind by her screaming Carabaaniel force. She chided a call within, doubling the effect upon its mind with her own hateful words.
Perhaps you should think of where you hail from, before you die.
Before it could make any sort of cognitive movement, Halycind ahd dashed to full speed and dug a sharp tip into just that small piece of exposed skin and drove an ungracefully messy sliding stab up into the belly of the beast.
Its wails coursed across the trees and roved throughout the mists as its innards showered the girl in gore. Her blade kept tearing through its meat as she slid her body further under it. She knew she needed to finish its heart and so shoved her Carabaaniel blade deeper up into its opening chest cavity to burst the wildly thumping thing.
It collapsed in a heap on the left side of her severely damaged body.
Could it have been possible it was heavier than it looked? Or was she only suffering the weight amidst the stabbing memories of her youth it up-heaved within her?
She could feel her injuries now, pinching at her gut, filling her brain, scraping at her heart and she panted in weeps of death. Though, even as she let her working eye roll to his carcass on top of her, that indomitable Ashok will would not let her relinquish her own life here in these woods and she pulled herself from underneath him.