Content Warning:
- blood, and gore, and near death things.
Fuck. Oh this was a terrible Idea. I should have just let Tasii and Yrelia handle this.
The… Murtaziq, as Jevita had guested, isn’t as tall as either Emarial, or even Zigdara. But Fuck me she’s way more terrifying.
About Tasii’s height, wide shoulders and a thick torso and hips. Skin tinted with the same hue as my own, but almost as pale as the snow. No hair, just… skin tattoo things like Jevita’s. Marks of Cultivation I’m guesting from the little information I’d gotten on the stuff. Covered in thin, long healed scars, all across her body.
And if all that stupid fucking shit wasn’t enough, she also has red fucking eyes. Not like dark red or a soft thing, blood fucking red. Well… eye. She’s missing her right one, and sports a nasty scar that stretches down that side of her face.
“Are you sure about this?” Yrelia murmurs again as I freeze in the doorway.
No. Fuck no.
The woman pauses, fucking takes a deep sniffing breath… then turns just her one good eye to us.
To me.
I can’t reply to Yrelia, can barely think. But… fuck I’m already here and she sees me and if I run she… she might…
I close my eyes for a second. Remember… remember what it was like to be one with Her. To be perfect… I try, and mostly fail to channel that confidence. Open my eyes, and begin moving across the empty common room of our inn toward her table.
Deep breaths.
“You wanted to talk.” I try to sound confident as I get within five feet. It fails, comes out more like a question. Half whisper and soft and… honestly a little higher pitch than I wanted.
Have to… focus on her jaw or something to avoid–
She grins, and I go stiff. Her teeth are black. Not like, rotten or dirty, jet fucking black. And of course she had three elongated extra sharp ones. What the fuck!?!
“Not really.” Her voice is… husky. Deep and rough. Like after a bad sickness or… or coughing fit.
“Um… Then…” I stammer as I move to hug myself, but decide against it. “What do you want? You… You mentioned there being…”
The room seems to… go still. And the couple other people in it stand. One moves to block the door, fingers play over the hilt of… oh. Oh that’s a–
Yrelia takes my arm and hand, Tasii steps close.
“The fuck is this?” Tasii growls.
The Murtaziq doesn’t move, just rolls that one blood red eye over us.
I glance at the… four women. Yeah four in total. Two are wearing light tunics with heavy cloaks. While the fourth is… a duenna? Black rock sword with gemstones glimmering from a hilt at her side. She’s the one blocking the exit back up to the tavern's rooms.
The Murtaziq is wrapped in layers and layers of… something. A kind of dark solid looking cloth with little studs of sharp bone and metal prickled throughout. She has a series of packs along her thighs and something slung over her back. A Weird hunk of wood with a gnarled end of dark crystals impaled throughout. She doesn’t reach for it, but… her stance is… I get flashes of a predator about to pounce.
She looks to Tasii, “The Sun Spoken needs to come with us.”
Yrelia looks back at the duenna… a small worried plea on her face. “You’re duenna, why are you with these fucks?”
The duenna shrugs, but stays quiet.
“Where?” Tasii presses, ignoring Yrelia’s question.
“She'll know when we get there.” The Murtaziq’s grin goes almost… feral. “There are people who would love to see her rewarded for her... services.”
Tasii jerks back, hand seems to drift up as if to shield me. “No. I… no. I think there’s been a mista–”
Someone is pulling me then, Yrelia by the arm. Starts to shout something, Tasii is jerking around, pushing me…
Then that black sword the duenna was holding was plunging out the side of one of my lover’s necks.
Everything… Everything is a blur of chaos for a few seconds. Yrelia is yanked away. I don’t hear her scream, but I flinch at a… a loud striking sound. Then Tasii’s head is in my arms and lap, and my hands are pressed to the horrible gash at her throat. Trying… trying to hold the blood inside and skin together.
No. no no no no no no no no no...
I look back, and see Yrelia slumped behind me. A… a budding purple lump mars her face as she tries to rise. One of the other women stands over her. A strange loose… thing in their hand. Like a little sack filled with rocks or… something.
Just a bad dream.
Then a shadow passes over me, movement as–
Wake up. WAKE UP!!
Rough hands grab my hair.
“Really, this little one?” The duenna snorts as she wipes Tasii’s blood off her blade with the hem of my lover’s shirt.
I fight, try to shove her back. Need to… need to keep the blood from leaving Tasii. Can’t… can’t let her–
“That’s what Lady Rell said.” The Murtaziq grunts, still trying to yank me up and get an arm around my neck. “Said she walked out of the–”
A flash of anger, and I turn on her. Biting and clawing and kicking and flailing and TRYING TO WAKE THE FUCK UP–
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A knee to my stomach, then something hard slams into my face, followed by the cold stone floor.
“Fucking cunt!” The Murtaziq hisses. “Bit my fucking nose!”
I barely catch the flash of the leather boot before my world drops into oblivion.
“THEY NEED US!!!” I Scream at Her.
She hums, but… doesn’t speak. I don’t know how long it’s been, here or out in the waking world. I… I tried to explain, expecting Her to just… jump right to the melding and waking and… and…
But she just… sits there. Staring off into the endless twilight. So I started screaming, shouting and crying and… and couldn’t stop.
“Come back with me.” I beg, kneeling and trying to take… well one of her hands.
A melding… you won’t be able to heal yourself and your lover. Your Amwella is too low.
“It’ll be nothing if I die!”
She sighs, then finally looks at me. Violet eyes lock with mine.
We’ll need to feed well afterwards.
And then We’re awake.
“I… fuck she got most of it.” the duenna is murmuring. “Didn’t expect such a little thing to do that.”
Face hurts, fucking cunt broke our nose with that kick.
We bounce a little, pain flashes. We’re slung over a shoulder like a sack. Cold winds blow bloody hair down about our eyes and face.
“Can’t look much worse, honestly.” The Murtaziq grunts a laugh.
It’s the duenna who’s carrying us, and of course she was stupid enough to let our head and arms hang closest to her right hip. The one with the blade that hurt our lover...
“You said it.” One of the others laughs nervously. She’s behind us, meets our eyes as fingers wrap around the cold leather of the sword at our capture’s side. Starts to warn the others and stop us. “Hey–”
Out, twist as she leans in… and razor sharp… fuck! Obsidian? Sharp as shattered glass. We can’t stop grinning at the exotic weapon. At the ease for which we’re able to repay this first woman. We cut out at her like a coiled snake.
Then she’s screaming, grasping at the weeping slash that’s left her face bisected and eyes ruined. The duenna jerks around, and doesn't seem to realize who struck her ally until her movement brings us around to perform a similar swipe at the Murtaziq and other women.
Of course the ugly cunt dodges, but the other woman is slow and finds her good hand and that horrid little rock bag plopping to the snow covered ground. Bloody red stump left to gush crimson.
It’s then the duenna understands the scorpion that rides her back, tries to sling us off while reaching for the blade we've taken. But we’re just… too fucking fast. Black glass is already buried three inches into her lower spine, snatching away the possibility she will ever walk after what she did.
As she falls we simply twist our hips, feet touch the snow, and we’re skipping away from the group. Obsidian blade already up and ready for the ugly cunt to–
But the Murtaziq isn’t approaching. She brought out that nasty club around, holds it up and half-ready. But her red eye darts among her former allies and their various states of agony and death.
“C’mere big girl.” We purr, twirl the blade around. Balance of it is… off. Not well carved. Just sharp as fuck.
She jerks her eye up to mine, and the fear we see in her eye is… fuck we can’t stop our grin from spreading. Fucking cunt attacks us, breaks our nose, forces a melding. We’ll take that other eye and–
She shakes her head, and is running way faster than someone her size should be able to.
A chase! Fuck that sounds wonderful!!! Just what we need to–
Division.
TASII!!!
We’re turning and running, spirits desperately trying to piece themselves back together as we cast about. Looking for the inn where my lover lies bleeding and… and maybe not alive.
“NO.” the smaller spirit spits and hisses, Angry She would even think that! Especially while in this fucking head!
But it looks like we’d only been carried a block or so from the inn, and before we can rejoin I’m pushing through the front door and barreling back into the common room. Kque and Jevita must have heard the commotion, as they’re kneeling beside the two. Yrelia jerks, she’d drug herself over to hang over Tasii. Hand’s as bloody as mine as she tries to… tries to…
“Tasii!” We scream and run to their sides, drop to our knees,
…and sing.
It’s… oh fuck. We need to end this Division. We choke and cough as the smaller spirit tries to drag that knowledge from the endless void the larger inhabits. Tasii looks… oh fuck she’s so pale. The blade looks to have missed everything immediately important, but… fuck the fucking obsidian is so sharp! A big chunk of muscle and skin and so much fucking blood just… droop off the side of her!
Deep breaths. The larger coos. Pulls the smaller spirit back into the warm embrace.
Anything. Anything to save Tasii. We let our mind melt and fold and come apart a little bit to ensure we’d not fuck things up again. Burn away fears and doubts and weaker parts from the smaller to quicken the Rejoining.
We smile, reach down to gently touch Tasii’s wounded neck, and sing our affections and love and fucking possessive fucking anger than some cunting bitch would dare try to TAKE WHAT IS OURS!!!
Tasii jerks, Kque grips our hand, asks something. Yrelia is shouting and crying, but… we see Jevita work to pull her back and hold her from interrupting. Eyes wide and… so so hungry as she drinks in my song.
We continue to hum this… fuck it’s like singing fire and… and fuck FUCK! We love how perfect the world feels as the song reshapes it. Makes it right. What it should have always been and should always be!
Tasii continues to jerk, her skin doesn’t so much heal as it… just kinda stops being a terrible mess. Blood still sits on the floor. Let anyone who sees it know what we do for ours.
A deep gasp, then she’s awake. Choking and whimpering and touching at the sensitive pink skin we rewove for her. Then her eyes pop open, and warble about in confusion. Fear and terrible pain seem to drip from her. Our hand drifts up to her face as the song lulls into a soft melody that is all calming and soothing grace. Her eyes lock on ours, and–
She just… collapses into horrible sobs. Strong beautiful features crumple into a weeping mess as she stares up at us with such fear and revulsion. Then she pulls and jerks from us. Tries to roll away and curl on herself.
Our song jerks… withers… and dies. She… but… but we saved her… why is she…
Kque holds her, and we slowly become aware of all the lesser sounds. Soft coos and murmurs and sobbing cries. We close our eyes… almost… almost enact division… a deep and sudden desire to… to tear… and rake at the weak parts of us that broke at the way she looked at us.
But then we catch the fucking stench of that Murtaziq cunt amidst our lover’s blood.
We glance back, see the obsidian blade laying at our side where we left it.
“I… Ina?” Yrelia whispers, slicing through the background of little hiccupping sobs coming from Tasii.
“Where is it?” We rise, and recover the lesser weapon. It can do for tonight. Will give us authority in these blighted wastes.
“Wh– what?” She sputters.
We turn, and… oh fuck her face is so broken and horrid. Maybe… maybe we could stay and sing her better before–
“Where is the weapon you took from us last night?” We give her our best… most confident smile. “We're going to repay this dept. No one hurts our lovers.”