"Five? ...no, seven sections, surrounding a hideous central mass with a lightless emptiness at its very center," Yahanaseara says. "And each of those sections had a single limb which jutted outwards as if trying to stab the space around it, and those in turn had countless smaller... things branching off from it, and so on. Endlessly."
Waaaait... this sounds kinda like that weird headache-inducing statue that she incinerated along with everything else in that tomb?
"Those burning limbs and those flaming tentacles would writhe and undulate in the most disgusting way, with the heat haze which eternally surrounded it somehow serving to make its appearance even more profane than it already was..."
Yahanaseara pauses for a few seconds while making a face like she'd just swallowed spoiled milk.
"My brother was with me when I first faced off against that abomination, and the mere sight of it was so revolting that he could not keep himself from vomiting."
"Wow."
I'm doing my absolute damnedest not to imagine what it would've looked like in motion.
"And then there was its voice..." she winces. "Horrid cacophonous warbling in a thousand different pitches all at once. My brother's nose began to bleed when it spoke to us, and I am sure the same would have happened to me were I not in my true form at the time."
"Uh..."
"How was it possible for anyone to willingly associate with something so fundamentally vile, much less worship it?"
"Beats me," I shrug.
"Stupid disgusting wretched f-" She suddenly bites her lip.
And then takes several deep breaths while still clamping down on it hard enough to draw blood.
Just as I start to get worried, her jaw finally relaxes and her tiny little pink tongue peeks out and laps up the blood and seemingly the bite mark too.
Automatic regeneration must be pretty convenient.
"My first encounter with them..." Yahanaseara resumes, "...it was when they arrived in pursuit of some survivors of their raids who had fled to my village."
"Ginirawhatever's followers?" I ask.
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She nods in response.
"They boasted of that thing's alleged greatness while brandishing the flames they obtained through contracting with it, I assume as a laughable attempt at intimidation."
The lightning girl's lips curve upwards.
"There is no escape from the encroaching flame~" she says in a mocking voice. "All are as kindling for the glorious blaze~"
"And in response, my brother simultaneously incinerated all their hearts with a single burst of chain lightning."
"......"
That smile.
I know that smile.
My mother smiles the exact same way when bragging about our mother/daughter bandit extermination raids.
What the hell.
"I suppose the ease at which he dispatched the pursuers sparked hope in the ones they were chasing," Yahanaseara continues. "They had initially requested nothing other than a place to hide, but now they made a different plea."
Her smile suddenly seems a lot more melancholic.
"A plea to rescue their people, just like the one that he made to me atop that mountain so many years prior."
She pauses to wipe her eyes with her sleeve, and I'm not so dense as to not understand that she's pushing herself right now and I really want to tell her to stop but
"...you okay?"
but that's all I can croak out because I'm absolutely fucking incompetent at interacting with people.
"No," she shakes her head. "I am not and I have not been for a very long time and I do not know if I ever will be again."
...dammit, seeing her like this is making me want to cry.
"But recalling the time I spent with my brother is also reminding me just how much I loved him, and that I always will love him," she says. "And sharing those memories with you, no matter how minor they may be, is a comfort."
She does a quick heel-pivot, turning her back to me.
"And recalling that thing is a reminder that it is dead, while I still live," she says, her voice taking a bit of her Elemental Spirit form's sparking twinge. "In spite of the best efforts of those who served it."
The lightning girl's slender shoulders heave as she takes several slow breaths.
"My brother and I... we traced the would-be raiders' path back to the village they attacked," Yahanaseara resumes, "and there we found house after house reduced to nothing but smoldering ash. Even the ground itself was charred black. But there was not a single corpse to be found."
Considering that this was apparently some kind of fucked-up cult, I'm going to assume that they burned all the bodies.
"The deeper in we went, the worse the damage... until we reached what I had assumed was once the town square. And that is where we laid eyes on that thing for the first time."
Her tiny hand clenches into a trembling fist.
"A ring of its followers, holding the remaining villagers in place and forcing them to watch as that BASTARD presented a tiny infant to it."
wait what
"Please don't tell me..."
"They chanted praises in that abomination's name as its writhing appendages wrapped around the child and slowly burned into her flesh."
"Oh my God."
The fuck kind of-
"My brother had a strong sense of justice, just like you," Yahanaseara glances back at me. "So much so that he raced forth to save the child without even thinking. But the sheer shock of witnessing that disgusting thing's full body was so severe that he doubled over and vomited before he could reach her."
"So the baby..."
"So it was up to me to do what he could not," she replies. "I wrested the child from that thing's grasp, pulled my brother back to where I felt it was safe enough and then left her with him."