Dysphoria

[Karuka]

Closed

Taische curled under Taodoine’s wing, feeling safe despite the dangers inherent in the jungles of Luthmor. Her mother had already scared away the snakes, the cooking fire had been turned into a sweet fire to keep away the biting bugs, and anything big that came would find itself facing worse than a small fire, because her mom was more powerful than anything.

She hadn’t yet seen that notion successfully challenged.

“Tell me a story about a time you were really scared.”

“Y’know I don’t get scared.” Karuka’s hand ran over the thick mass of black hair that belonged to her only child, occasionally reaching over to scratch the sleepy phoenix who made it his habit to snuggle with the little girl while they slept.

“Yes you do. I saw you get scared. Once.”

“An’ I pray y’ never know that type of fear. All right. I’ll tell y’ about a time I was scared. I was right about yer age, an’ I went out int’ th’ forest t’ find some late summer berries. I los’ track of th’ time, an’ day turned t’ night. I couldn’t see, an’ had quite lost my way. I thought I’d never see anyone I knew again. At dawn, a great elk stepped out of th’ forest. He looked right at me, almos’ judgin’ me. I didn’t know if he was going t’ trample me or let me go, but he walked right up, sniffed me, an’ nudged me t’ my feet. I went th’ way he turned me, an’ found myself home that afternoon.”

Taische kicked the soft ground, earning an impatient squawk from Taodoine. “You don’t sound scared.”

“I’m not now. I was then. I was smaller’n you are, an’ not near as clever. I thought I was goin’ t’ die out there, in woods I thought I knew.”

“What about these woods?”

Karuka smiled. “I’m part of this place, wee bit. We’ll not get lost.” She bent to kiss the little head. “Sleep. Dawn comes early.”

Her daughter was asleep within a few minutes, and Karuka got up, moving through the overwhelming darkness of the jungle to tuck some more wood into the fire.

“Did'ja ever find what y' were lookin' for?" She framed the next syllable almost like a ward, warning the shadow lurking beyond the fire’s reach that she wasn’t what he remembered, almost daring him to try to test her.

“Kor.”

[None So Blind]

“You told me I wouldn’t. I didn’t, but look what I’ve found now.” he said. His voice snaked out of the darkness. It was quieter now than it had been all those years ago. If it hadn’t been for the girls – no, womans – sharp ears, it might have gotten lost in the shuffle of leaves in the trees as they swayed with the breeze or the sound of the insects that chirruped and screamed from the forests around them. Instead, his voice was the growl of a predator just low enough for the prey to remember the sound of death in the next life.

That was something that might have scared her once upon a time, but now he could tell that this was a different redhead he danced with. She never wavered from the mix of alert and calm. When he’d known her as a much younger thing, there’d been only fire and focus. She’d always been bold, but now everything she did made it seem like she was more comfortable in her bravery. There were skills there to back it up now.

Had he changed so much? He doubted it. The Drow didn’t step as much as slide from the darkness and towards the fire, the light gold and ruby as it danced across his infinitely dark skin. It shimmered along his silver hair. From the last time they’d been face to face, he’d lost weight. He was gaunt now, his eyes a darker bronze than the bright orange they’d been.

A fine change, the voice of his bird spoke. She’s grown strong. She’s a mother now.

From behind the fingers of flame that licked upwards and the dance of sparks, his eyes fell on Taische. His eyes betrayed nothing, though he watched the child for a long moment.

“Your little rocks never did tell me how to find it,” he finally added.

[Karuka]

"Y' ran me off b'fore they could. Not that y' were in any sort of a mind t' listen t' little clay runes in th' hands of a girl y' didn't respect." Karuka leaned back a little bit, sitting in front of the fire with her eyes on the Alerian elf. He had tried so hard to be an intimidating figure so many years ago, and hadn't been as successful as he'd hoped.

Kor had not fared as well as she had, as though every ounce she'd put onto her then-malnourished frame had come directly out of his body. She didn't see many new scars on his still-bare torso, but sleek and solid muscle had turned sinewy and thin. His body language had changed as well, likely in response to her own. He still moved with the sinister grace of a panther, but instead of striding forward boldly, wrapped in the confidence that darkness afforded him, he slunk into the light of her fire.

He looked... diminished, somehow. Was what he couldn't find draining away at his power? Or in a world where only the strong survive, was he finding that he was weak?

He'll be dangerous if he feels weak. A wounded bear was more dangerous than a hale one, after all. And it hadn't escaped her attention, just where his eyes had gone.

Her weakness. But a mother bear was more dangerous than a wounded one.

"Y' won't want t' try treatin' her like y' treated me back then. Dunno who'd tear y' apart th' fastest; me, her, or th' fam'ly pet." The redhead watched the fire flicker, yellow and red, on the elf's thin face for a very long moment. Cicadas screamed in the trees, mosquitoes hummed at the edge of the light. It was only when a log cracked ominously in the flames that she broke the silence again.

"What brings y' t' Luthmor, Kor?"

[None So Blind]

He snorted. Derision was all he could muster from her threat. Not that he doubted her. It wasn’t hard to see that he had been left in stasis. All these years, she’d grown and he’d been hidden away. He wasn’t ready yet to confront the things that had happened in the dark. When he left her, he’d been injured, taken, and then slept. No, his contempt was more for her assumption that he had no idea what it was like to be a mother. Of course, what else would she think?

He came closer to the fire and sat. The heat haze that drifted above it distorted the witch (druid, he was reminded). His face and arms stung, sitting too close to the small blaze. The dirt was too warm, the bubble of too light making the darkness that surrounded them even more oppressing. He liked the dark and the cold, the embrace of shadows.

He thought.

The Drow wasn’t completely sure anymore what he liked. When he thought too hard about anything, he felt tired. Instead, he deflected and gave her the best smile he had. It was warm and inviting, but far from effortless as it once had been.

“Maybe I came looking for something pretty to eat. Something with a little bite, a lot of heart.”

From the trees, the tiny ball of feathers chirruped. It was almost like a laugh, but sounded more like hope.

[Karuka]

“Y’ll need t’ find a better lizard, then. Th’ last one was rotten with his heart still beatin’.” She gave the elf another look, as though she was breaking him down to see what he might be hiding. It was a cold look, though; their first encounter had taught her to be wary of him.

If anything could be said of Karuka O’Sheean, it was this: when taught something, she did not forget it.

He’s not playin’ th’ same game this time as last. Perhaps he was just too tired and beaten. She hadn’t thought of him in nearly ten years; it was a very long time in which something could have happened. Or it could just be Luthmor’s oppressive heat and humidity. Dheathain’s climate wasn’t anywhere near the temperate aridity of the dark elf’s native land.

Maybe he was gearing up for a more subtle strike. Why had he come so close to her camp as to gain her notice?

After several moments of silence, Karuka whistled a high-pitched trill, inviting the bird that lurked in the background to come forward. And come she did, a tiny little finch with feathers yellow as sulphur and green as emeralds. Karu let her light on her hand, giving her a gentle scratch on the neck.

“Look how pretty y’ still are. Yer doin’ well fer a bird yer size at such an age, little beauty. I hope yer still a pain in his ass.”

[None So Blind]

“Oh, there are certain things that never change,” he admitted quietly. That bird would never make things easy on him. Had he ever told her about Queen? Kor stared at the wood in the fire while he tried to think back to the short time they’d spent together. Most of it was hazy. As the little finch hopped and preened on Karuka’s finger, Kor was fairly sure the druid had no idea what it was she held on her hand. The verdant creature was tied to him, body and soul.

Memories of the afterlife where he’d found her were creeping in. An expansive desert, a tall mountain. Endless red and shadows. A promise. He remembered holding the body of his past life in his arms and swearing that he would bring about the end of her enemies. From what he remembered of the life he’d lived before, it wasn’t an option to go back on a promise to Ghauntyrr’Stra Do’afin.

“Where are you going, girl?” he asked, though she was anything but a girl now. His voice was gravel and malice, and an overwhelming fatigue of rising from a sleep of years. “I’ve things to do here, and I’ll walk your path for a while.”

It never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be welcome.

[Karuka]

Karuka rubbed her nose against Queen's soft belly. She hadn't interacted with the bird during her last encounter with Kor, but she'd been lurking in the background, chattering in the language of birds, and the dark elf had frequently looked concerned or constipated while the tiny finch went silent. She'd come from a shamanistic people; it wasn't too hard for her to figure out what was going on between them. More confusing was that in her True Sight, Queen glowed as brightly as a person. That wasn't typical of a familiar, even one as powerful and intelligent as her own, Taodoine.

"I don't r'call invitin' y' to walk my path, Kor." Her sky blue gaze snapped across the small fire, cutting through the hazy smoke that rose from it. "It's no business of yers whence I go, why, or what business I might have while I'm there." She waved her fingers gently, sending Queen back to her dark elven companion. "There'll not be any 'y' will sleep near t' me,' no grabbin' an' pushin', none of th' nonsense. An ay long time ago, y' needed me t' travel with y'. It was yer destiny. Y' drove me away an' spurned that destiny, an' it's come an' bit ya in th' ass. I warned y' that it was a losin' bet, an' y' went an' lost. Y' got th' one thing y' thought y' needed, an' it was th' thing y' needed least."

Her tone was steel and her eyes blazed, daring him to challenge her. "Whatever cause y' have t' be in Luthmor, y' go about it, on yer own way. Leave me an' mine alone."

The darkness around the fire grew more oppressive - Kor's domain, if she remembered right. But she never looked away from him.

[None So Blind]

His faced had twisted into a deeper scowl than before as Queen chortled from her perch. She danced on his shoulder, her tiny nails poking at him through the thin cotton tunic he wore. He wanted to snarl at her, but he refused to drop the witch’s gaze. Blue eyes, red hair, a jaw set as stubborn as any mountain – he wondered how she’d managed to slip his mind. She would not slip his grasp.

“My ways are many, little witch.” He hissed. The bird on his shoulder jerked, almost as if it had rolled its eyes so hard it nearly rolled the rest of her body with it. “Your sight should be enough to tell you that.”

He was on his feet and moving back suddenly, as if propelled by a spring that had been winding for years. As he fell into the shadows beyond the flame, he faded, gone. The darkness had him, and he walked. His sight in the darkness was little more than a brush and whisper. Figures of things were hinted at, but the only thing that was sure were the shadows, the doors back out into the world.

As suddenly as he had melted away, he was back again, slipping through a door that appeared when the wind knocked the fire low. In the flash of shadow that whisped by Karuka, he was there, crouching. The fire flared and illuminated him, his tired eyes, his skinny frame. He opened his mouth, maybe to threaten, maybe to tease.

Instead, he yelped, jumping away from Karuka and landing nearly in the fire. He danced for a moment, gathering his footing and scooting away, bronze eyes wild as they dashed to find the thing that had bit him. He found a tiny hand, the last remnants of blue energy arcing across the fingers in a lace.

“You shocked me,” he said, his voice filled with disbelief, tinted with just a touch of something else – approval? He stared at the child for a moment before defiantly looking back to Karuka.

“Witches begetting witches, I should have known.” On his shoulder, Queen was laughing riotously, her tiny body shaking from mirth and the shock she’d shared with the Drow.

[Karuka]

The little girl grumbled, grabbing the phoenix's wing and pulling it back over herself like a blanket. She was up at dawn without fail, but any who woke her before that would have hell to pay. The child's sudden movement had wakened the great bird as well, and he lifted his head to see the threat. He immediately picked out the finch, and his eyes gleamed hungrily. She was just bite sized.

A wave from Karuka kept the phoenix in place.

A steel knife gleamed in the firelight, twisting ominously between strong fingers. "D' y' want t' try again?"

She didn't get up, her posture hadn't tensed. She looked bored, annoyed. "If y' do, I'll have t' ask y' t' keep down th' damned racket. I do have a sleepin' child. An' a tiny wee lightnin' bolt is th' least of her tricks. Wake 'er again, y' might see what it looks like when she gets mad."

The redhead watched him for a little bit, maintaining the idle dance of sharp steel in her hand. "Pray y' don't need t' see what happens when I get angry. Tiny wee witch girls grow up, Kor. An' they grow stronger. What happens t' shadows when they sleep?"

[None So Blind]

Kor scoffed, angrily crossing his arms in front of him.

You need to take her seriously, Queen warned from his shoulder. Her voice was tainted with fear. In her past life, the little bird had been a shrewd judge of power, but Kor never remembered that. He would underestimate her just as he underestimated the mother in front of him. Old habits died hard.

Still, the question wormed its way into the back of his mind. What did happen to shadows when they slept? He was still waking, he could feel it. When the sand finally cleared from his mind, would he be ready to return to Alerar and find the thing he sought so long ago?

“My cause here is a temple, witch.” He said after a long moment. “If you really wish to be rid of me, have your little rocks tell me which way to go. If not, I’ll have no choice but to follow you like the night, blotting out stars one by one until you cannot deny the dark.”

Oh yes, she’ll go gaga over your ego, the finch commented, preening dark feathers. Kor gave the bird a warning glare, though she did not notice at all. He turned his attention back to Karuka, cocking a silver brow and grinning as if he’d won some game, though he was likely the only one playing.

[Karuka]

"Or I could send y' back int' th' dark... Ghauntyrr'Stra Doa'fin." Karuka's sky blue eyes had gone almost white, and she turned them to the tiny finch on the dark elf's shoulder. "Which wouldn't be too much fair fer you, Natamrael Nito, but I'll not have some psychopath sneakin' aroun' my so small child." A victorious smirk slashed across her face at the dumbfounded expressions on both Kor's and Queen's faces. If nothing else proved how vast and strong her view of times and lifetimes were, that had.

She added another log and some more smokey herbs to the fire, then stood up and walked over to the tree where Taische was sleeping, sitting down and grasping her spear with one hand. "Y' might find yer temple. Y' might not. But whether or not y' do is neither my problem nor my r'sponsibility. But y' might want t' keep an eye out. Th' beasts of Dheathain are not ay so tame as th' beasts of Alerar."

With that, she closed her eyes to sleep. If that didn't hammer in the point of just how little fear she felt toward Kor, nothing would.

[None So Blind]

The Drow had gone ashen. While there’d been a hint of illness, an obvious lessening from what he once was, now he looked as if he truly were teetering on the precipice of the grave. Ghauntyrr’Stra was a name he hadn’t been called in so long, and in another life it was a name that had commanded respect and fear from Kyorl and Dahlios’ alike. The redhead spoke it so flippantly.

“You may See, but your sight is short if you dare speak that name, even so far from Alerar.” He hissed, though he knew he wouldn’t get a response. She was in repose, preparing to sleep. Kor’s blood pressure skyrocketed. The insult was enough that in any other circumstance he would have struck. But his eyes went back to the small figure sleeping in the warm embrace of the phoenix.

Oh he remembered the last time he’d felt such talent from one so young.

“Watch yourself, Karuka,” he said, his voice clipped, her name strained as he said it and left behind his usual ‘witch’. “You’ll regret spurning me. And watch your dalhar. The shadows aren’t a child’s plaything.”

As a predator, he slunk away, melting away into the darkness as easily as he had been called from the void.

[Karuka]

Karuka cracked an eye open when Kor was gone, looking at the phoenix who had moved protectively to better cover his young charge. He was an imprint; hatched and raised in the redhead's care. As far as he was concerned, Taische was the second hatchling, his younger sister. That she had fire powers too was just confirmation to the mythic bird. That meant he was also responsible for her safety, and he'd seen the look on the dark-skinned elf's face.

Karu reached over and gave her familiar a nudge. "Give her some breathin' room, Tao. Nothin's happenin' t'night. T'morrow, though..." She looked out into the darkness. "He might ay make me kill 'im."


~*~*~

Dawn saw the trio walking again as soon as they'd eaten breakfast and killed the campfire. The mother and child moved through the jungle's thick roots and cloistering foliage with a natural, easy grace, as if they'd been born to it.

The phoenix and the child chased each other through the dimly lit brush, playing in the manner of children and pets. Their only rules were that they not hurt each other and that one of them (usually Taodoine) had to be within Karuka's sight at all times.

Though occasionally she'd scan the scenery, she gave no indication she felt any danger.