“FALL IN!” The deep sound rattles my bones and fills the room, making the air itself solid with pressure.
The tiny giants around me spring to their feet and quickly make a ring around the outside of the massive room. I’m left laying on my back, dizzy, and giggling still. I swear one of the symbols on the ceiling - a fist in a circle - is trying to steal my attention, but it's probably just because looking at it makes the other ones go all wobbly… and it's big and in the middle and shiny and I know what a fist is.
The sounds of feet stampeding into place quiets. In its place is an air of tension and pressure similar to Strwabdwa’s alive smell feel, but closer to just before a pretty gives me food.
There’s a tickling as a yellow fluffy cloud appears around me. It looks tasty. I bite it. Smacking my mouth a bit to taste it fully I can’t help but pout as I realize there’s nothing in my mouth. Using my hands I scoop it into my mouth and bite. Booooo.
The cloud wraps around my limbs and pulls me into a starfish. That’s what the pretties call it when I try and grow as far as I can in all directions. It’s important to use all my bits as well as I can. Oh yeah, tasty looking cloud. It lifts me and puts me in the middle of the circle, face to face with the ugliest person I’ve seen.
Ok, so. There’s the pretties. They’re very very pretty. Then there’s Strwabdwa, who isn’t hard to look at. There’s all the peoples I saw coming here who were interesting to look at. There’s the tiny giants - some are cute, but most just look like their heads are too big or (for the tall tiny giants) their bits aren’t big enough. Now we have that. That, is a dirty brown with a lot of lines around his face that put things in places they clearly shouldn’t be. That, only has half a nose, lips that don’t close, a jaw that is wider than its face, teeth that can’t be real, one pitch black eye that’s way too big and another normal eye that’s way too small, a yellow beard that’s missing patches, vomit green skin, and no neck. That is absolutely ginormous and has no neck.
“Bwah?” I jump scare out loud. *sniff sniff* I gag a little, stick out my tongue, and grimace at it. It smells like soap and sweat, which is good. If it smelled like it looks I would have to poop to make it better.
The Thing splits open - gross - then whips backwards and up before booming all over again.
“Bwa ha ha ha ha HA HA HA!” The booming turns to wheezing as it backs up, doubles over and starts slapping its leg. This guy, I can tell now, is way too big and shaggy, covered in coarse yellow fur, is much bigger than Greyward, is wearing black pants and a thick well worn maroon vest tied in the middle with a dark gray metal mesh belt, and hollering for all he’s worth while slapping himself loud enough to echo through his own voice. Ugly, I like you.
“Bweee heee heee.” I join in. Those seems to be the magic words because now everyone is giggling, chuckling, and trying really hard to stay calm. I see the tiny giants… ya know, no, this is a giant giant, they’re now little bigs… little bigs behind Ugly doubled over holding their sides trying really hard to stay quiet.
“Raaargh.” Ugly lets out as he stands back up wiping a tear out of his eye. He points at Cleric Strongjaw behind me, “I like this one! Are you sure you want me to tear out and torture his soul?”
“You and I both know that’s not what’s happening.” Face Man deadpans from behind me, then pauses and talks with that same shudder inducing sound as before, “But the answer is absolutely yes. Do your worst, Clark.”
One day very soon, I will know what those sounds mean!
Ugly suddenly goes from friendly to very very scary looking as the pressure in the room solidifies. He snaps his clawed fingers together and everything disappears.
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– – –
Pressure. Fear. Blood. Death.
FIGHT! Run? Tearing sensations from every direction. Pain. Weakness.
Flashes and bursts of pain, fear. Overwhelming death and finality, loss.
All that exists is the feeling of pain, of fighting, of loss, of death, of weakness, of fear. The sudden understanding that no matter how hard I fight, how strong I become, everything will be taken from me. Anything and everything I will ever love, believe, cherish, desire – emotions I’ve never experienced but somehow know – will be crushed and destroyed in front of me.
I grab hold of one of the feelings - unsure of how I do so - and look at it. This doesn’t feel like me. I pull and feel something tug from far away, then the thing I’m holding feels like it bites me and takes a chunk from me. I focus.
*Snap*
The nothingness turns black and gray. I see creatures moving, hunting, fighting, and tearing at each other. They’re large, huge, terrifying. Full of mouths with fangs, limbs with claws, and eyes that suddenly lock onto me. I notice a pale golden silver glow and, glancing down, realize I’m glowing. The creatures as one stop and turn at me. I feel myself. I can move as I will here.
My glowing body becomes crisp, solid. I squeeze the thing in my hand and hear a noise from it. Lifting it to my mouth I bite down and tear out a chunk of the thing. It explodes into mist in my mouth, flows out, and merges back with the thing.
Suddenly I feel pain explode in my back and across my sides as more of the nightmares dive at me, tearing at me. I notice a small glimmer in each of them and am struck by a sudden epiphany - these new friends just want to play! I mean, sure, the game hurts… but that’s just the way they say hi.
I feel myself start to move and just dive into the twisting mass of horrid nightmares. I punch, and kick, and slap, and bite as much as I’m able. I’m not very good at this game though, because boy-oh-boy am I losing.
They’ve managed to tear a lot more out of me while I’ve gotten almost nothing out of them. The pieces I get just flow away and remerge. I have no idea how they’re doing that.
I clench my poop exit and hold on as best I can. It’s me vs all of them and this is hard. Feeling something behind me I spin just in time to catch a massive claw across the face…
– – –
I take a shuddering gasp and then just vomit up everything I’ve ever eaten in my life. I keep vomiting. Finally I stop and take in a big breath. Something in me wants to just scream and cry out and make a fuss, so instead I just clench really really hard - pooping myself in my cloud thing.
I death glare at Ugly. That was not very nice.
“17 seconds.” Strwabdwa sounds very disappointed. Nodding sagely, I sympathize with him, for I too have felt like he sounds right now when the pretties are changing clothes and not feeding me. “17 seconds…” He mutters again.
“What does that mean?” Gwab sounds like she’s talking to Strwabdwa behind me somewhere. I’m busy staring Ugly in the eyes with as much ‘Meywibode telling me not to put that in my mouth’ as I can muster.
Look, I don’t care about whatever that was, but you made me lose my food! That was my food!
“It means his temperament is timid. When pressed, when challenged, he freezes or doesn’t think to run until it's too late. Notice that still the babe does not cry. As still as he is, there may be no future for him.” Cleric Strongjaw needs to stop making noise and tell Ugly here that food is too important to just vomit like this. Sure, losing some happens - that’s why there are so many pretties to feed me - but this much? Unacceptable!
Ugly is just staring at me. One of the tiny giants - no, little bigs - suddenly falls. Breaking eye contact with Ugly, I look over and notice that the little bigs have their eyes squeezed shut, sweat pouring down their faces, and some have collapsed to their knees. Weird.
I look back at Ugly. He’s still staring at me with that horrid face that makes no sense.
With a deep sigh he gestures behind me and waves towards himself. “Greyward was it? Come and get this thing. There’s nothing more that can be done. You know what the spiritual trial is like Strongjaw. Even the weakest of warriors can hold on for a minute. There has never been a single case where a person who can’t last at least a minute has touched their core, less likely ignited it. He won’t be a warrior. He will probably never have the strength to even touch the weave and feel mana - less likely refine it. Take the babe back to where you brought it. I think it shit itself.”
Ugly looks, sad? Yeah, sad. Decision made! When I get bigger I’ll come back and make him laugh again. Ugly should laugh more.
Gwab scoops me out of the tasty looking clouds, sniffs me, gags a little, and quickly carries me away.
As we’re heading out the door, Face Man’s voice drifts over, “Greyward, I will come by the nursery after discussing next steps with the conclave.” Judging by the look on Gwab’s face the Cleric just said something very bad.