View Full Version : Children of Nin
The dream was always running ahead of me. To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
Anais Nin
Death was all around her. The death of her Pub, the absense of her lover, the taking of her child; there was so much missing from her life. Tshael now spent her lonely days in a hotel room, staring at the earth that once held her dreams, the earth that once lay charred and smoldering before her very eyes. She could feel the figure behind her now, the one that stood in bone with scythe. He brought the end to each season, to each stalk of wheat as it parted from the stalk of life. He brought the end of the life she had grown accustomed to. She felt as if she had been born anew, and now she stood staring at the body she used to have.
In flesh, Tshael had changed very little. The reflection that stared back at her had been the one to always catch her eye. Thick red hair fell down her back, beginning to curl once it hit her shoulder, spiraling down skin that was tanned from running underneath the Concordian trees for so long. Only her chest was lighter than her arms, wearing a human shirt had bleached the skin underneath it but no longer did clothes inhibit her. Her breasts, she thought as she turned slightly to inspect them, had been changed by motherhood. The wellspring of her son's health had made them swollen, and even still they were larger than they'd been in her teens.
It was only nature, her mind told her, and she looked again to meet her face in the glass. Her lips were cracked from the dry winter, her golden eyes rimmed with the evidence of her sleepless nights spent pacing the candle-lit room. It was strange, to think of her mind as one that worried. She felt more complete than she had in years, felt strong and indestructible.
Why worry, when you can destroy?
Her anger flared deep within, burnishing the amber light in her eyes to something darker, wilder. Why should she worry? It hadn't been her fault, any of it. Thoracis again danced on her memory, a spectre she couldn't let go of. He danced with passion of laughter, and she knew he cared nothing for the shadows that had taken Tsyliss away. Why would he, when he had yet to set eyes on his own son? She could see him, in the dancing candle's reflection by her shoulder, his shadow. The dark form of him - how he fought with a cat's grace! - dancing away from her, and probably into the arms of another woman. The moving shadows became her own torture, and what she saw in the reflection was enough to make her turn away and curl up on the bed.
Would sleep come tonight? She curled up on the bed, pulling a quilt over her furred legs and cloven hooves. It came farther still, until she had buried her head under it too, under the darkness that came with death, she was sure. She closed her eyes, thinking of her heartbeat. There had been once when she was sure that Thoracis' heart matched her own. The idea of soulmates was so silly to her now. He had left her with his kiss and his seed, leaving her to grow the garden alone.
As the candle burned down, drowning in the wax at the bedside, the shadow of Morpheus entered the room. The Sandman was quieter than the ghost of the masked mage that so often followed Tshael around, more fleeting than the memories of another mage who had begun this cycle hundreds of years before. As the Radasanthian hotel faded from her mind, she found herself in a small glade, still fuzzy on the edges of her imagination. Water bubbled in a shallow stream through it, a doe and fawn drinking deeply from the clear waters. Trees were willed with flowers and their fragrance wafted down to the Dranak. As peaceful as the scene was, however, the hair on the back of her neck began to stand at attention. On the ground before her, a small silver mirror lay.
She saw only herself in it, but behind the glass Morpheus waited. The groundskeeper of her dreams began to sharpen the blade that would harvest the fruit of the season.
{{DISCLAIMER: This battle will not take place in the physical world. Thus, we are taking liberties with time and character abilities. No new abilities can/will be learned through this thread. It is simply a dream (within a dream?).}}
A long day had finally come to an end. Shenjara sat back against a tree, a fish-kebab in her right hand. Looking at the fire, she felt at peace. For once my powers are being used constructively. she though to herself. Kishurin had long since fallen asleep, having enjoyed the meal the two had cooked together.
Kishurin had become a good friend of Shenjara's, calling her "Shen" instead of "Shenjara." Although it was shorter, he used it alot, and seemed fond of the word. She had told him that the word meant "Believe" in her village's language. The two of them were always learning something from one another, tonights lesson being on the numerous ways to season a delicious fish. She had come up with several suprises for him, but he really shocked her when he used saltroot to such a great effect, which would make any food very bitter, yet somehow the fish didn't taste even a slight bit salty.
Shenjara hadn't spoken to Joran in a while, and wanted to catch up on things with him. He seemed very interested in Kishurin, always asking "What has he been like recently?" Sometimes she wondered if he was trying to hint at something. She relaxed her body and closed her eyes. Leaving the Conscious world behind, her mind entered the Astral Realm, where she could see the myriad Astral strands which caused dreams. Dreamweavers were able to enter the Astral Plane actively and manipulate the strands to create all sorts of wonderous occurances. Premonitions, dream-contact, and lucid dreams were all things that dreamweavers could use to achieve their goals.
Her mind reached for a strand very familiar to her. The strands didn't have a look. There was no color or sound in the Astral Plane. Each strand had a unique presence, much like a person's scent to an animal. Taking the strand in her mind's grasp, Shenjara focused her spirit on that strand, entering the dream she wanted. One that contained Joran, her late fiance.
As the scenery of the dream became more clear, her mind's eye noticed that this wasn't the normal dream. Something strange had happened in the weave, and she had ended up here. There were trees all around her. She could hear water up ahead, and felt as though something was pulling her towards the sound. She worked her way through the foliage towards the sound, seeing no reason to resist.
There, just ahead of a small break in the trees, was a river and two deer in a glade. A flash to her right made her look over in suprise, as floating there was Joran in all his Ethereal glory. He bore a small smile, seemingly happy to see his beloved again.
"There is someone who I want you to meet. You may find she has had...similar experiences as you. Enjoy each other's company, and feel free to experiment." Joran's airy voice said, confusing Shenjara. What did he mean by experiment? Before she could ask, she found herself in the glade, with Joran's wispy blue spirit next to her. There was another woman here, with red hair and a presence that felt of suffering and pain. She was looking into a small mirror, apparently not having heard Shenjara enter the clearing.
Shenjara was always a slight bit cautious with people, unless she felt good reason to trust them. Taking a knee, she waited until the woman noticed her, thinking to herself, Why am I supposed to meet this person? May I find my answer swiftly, as even a Weaver like myself can only dream for so long.
Tshael moved the mirror away with her hoof when a rustle in the soft grass told her that she had been joined by another. Turning, she looked the younger magess over, inspecting the expression of the girl's face and the way she held her staff more than anything else. The girl had leaned down, on one knee, and was also inspecting the Dranak. Tshael could feel the cautious regard like a soft wind blow across her skin. She let herself smile, but only for a moment. She'd seen herself in the mirror; she'd seen all she needed to.
"Do you want to hear a story?" Tshael asked softly in the Common tongue. The Concordian accent was heavy on her lips, with only a hinting of Radasanthian fringing. "It won't take long at all."
She took several steps towards the girl, noting how the hue in her red hair was brighter than her own. She tried, and failed, to place the origin of the girl's coming, though her own experience was limited to the island of Corone. Giving up, she decided that it didn't matter much where the girl came from. It all came down to where the girl was going. She was so young now, but soon she would develop into her prime. Things would set in motion, Tshael felt, just as they had for centuries before. Those with power grew along branches. Great villains, great heroes, they all came from the same seed. It all came down to how you pulled the weeds.
"There was once a powerful magician, and he fell in love with a goddess. He trapped her in a body that died day by day. She made a mistake. She fell in love with him too."
As Tshael came nearer, the grass began to grow faster where her hooves had been. Buds that would have taken weeks to sprout flowered. She left behind little pillows of life, and deep under them, the ground trembled with anticipation. The magess had been long in unleashing her powers, but her emotions were starting to rise with the recitation of her ancestry, her history.
"Cycles repeat, child," she whispered to Shenjara. "The goddess was born again, as a sorceress, and she fell in love again with a magician. But this time he was an illusionist, and she closed her eyes to kiss him. When she opened them again, he was gone."
She finally stopped, two feet from Shenjara, holding out her open hands. A vine that had been trailing her passage began to wrap it's way up one of her legs. It grew full and green, fat and juicy with life. Tshael narrowed her eyes, the pleasant smile that she once wore melting into a frown, and the vine began to ripple as tiny thorns burst through the plant's skin. They clung to the fur on the Dranak's legs like lost children.
"Tell me your name, girl. And tell me if you know where the magician went."
Shenjara watched the woman approach her, listening to her words while watching the trail of quickly growing flora. Standing, gaze pierced gaze as eyes met, Shenjara's warm and curious, the other's strange and cold, and Shenjara could not help but shiver. She could feel the cold, unsympathizing presence of the other woman's mind, the woven dream exposing the other's mind to Shenjara. She was sure the other could feel her as well, curious as to what presence she would give.
"My name is Shenjara Flamespire, Greenhoof. I know not of your magician. However, I too have a tale, if you would hear it." Breaking the link between them, she walked past the woman, bowing her head slightly. She also had a tale of pain and death.
"There once were two people, a boy and a girl. Both of whom had grown at each other's side." Shenjara was behind the woman now, her head still bowed . "Both were destined to wield the elements; he with water, and she with fire. As they began their training, they realized they loved each other deeply." At this, Shenjara raised her head as a single tear fell from her now watery eyes. "However, neither occurance was meant to be. On the day he proposed to her, he was killed in a flurry of flame and smoke. The girl, whose emotions ruled her power, had become overwhelmed, and was not able to hold back the rush of flaming power."
Shenjara turned around, the pain clear in her eyes and her face awash with tears. "She escaped with her life, burning the homes of all those around her, and ending the life of her beloved. It was that day that two lives ended, those of the boy and the girl." Drying her face on her sleeve, she continued, "The girl is constantly reminded of that painful day as the spirit of her departed lover talks to her in her dreams."
The pain had left her face to be replaced with a show of anger. "Tonight was meant to be a night in which the two souls would meet again, however it has not been the case. Instead, someone else is meant to be her contact. Someone who would greet her with thorns and flowers at the same time."
Kneeling in the grass, she felt Joran's presence nearby, and his voice in her head. "Cry not, my dear. Have you forgotten our agreement? In return for letting me watch over you, you were not to weep, as such sadness creates hardship for me as well."
She stopped crying and stood, replying, "Forgive me, Joran. The memory of your death is very painful. I shouldn't have brought it up. But the comfort of your voice has lightened my spirit. So don't worry, I will lose no more tears tonight." Looking to where the ethereal Joran floated, she smiled and cocked her head as though to present a supporting gesture.
Turning to the hoofed woman, her expression hardened. "Now, let us hear your name, goddess of sorcery."
"Always, we women of magic make the same mistakes," Tshael marveled as the girl's story was finished. "We always fall in love, chained to men who can weild those strands of nature that kill our own. Water quenches fire. Ice," she said, choking on the word, so large in her heart for such a tiny three-lettered thing, "stops the growing process. Such opposites attracting, it challenges the soul, and forges strong souls in the resulting storms. The man is thrown aside, be it by death or by chasing battles." She looked at the girl again, summing her up by all she'd said and done.
"Your spirit was forged by adversity." Tshael remarked, holding out her hand, not to the girl, but to the ground. A stone hand burst from the soil and moved upwards, stretching slowly as if it wanted to take Tshael's hand. She frowned at it for a moment, wondering why it was moving so slowly. Sluggish as it was, the stone still moved, so she turned her attention back to Shenjara. "You have the makings of a hero. Althanas needs no more heroes, no more villains. Fame creates stories. Stories create power. Power, borders, borders, war. These same saviours who come to save the land from war are the ones who bring it."
She withdrew her hand from the stone's grasp at the last moment, and it clenched the rocky fingers together as if it were angry it's mistress' touch had bene revoked. It stood still, three feet above the ground it had come from. With a flick of her wrist, Tshael motioned to the vine that had positioned itself around her leg and it began to uncurl itself, inching instead toward the monument of anger that had been created in the glade.
"Shenjara Flamespire, you named me improperly the last time you spoke." Tshael said, stepping away from the magess. As the notes in her voice grew menacing, the deer that once drank so peacefully at the stream shied off, taking cover in the deeper parts of the wood within the dreamscape. "Throughout the eons, I have been called Nashiara, the Armored One. Before you now, I stand as Tshael. I have never deigned over magic. My talent is healing. My realm is War. I have been long worshipped for Peace." Her smile was only half self-mocking as she raised her hands and her fingers began to weave a spell.
"To bring peace, there must be an end to war, to the heroes and villains that fight it. To bring peace, Shenjara, I'm going to have to make sure that you never become either one."
Taken aback by the goddess' words, Shenjara tripped into the pool behind her. Soaked, she looked up at the other, now a terrible presence of power and anger. Shenjara was afraid of what the other might do to her, wishing that this had not come to pass.
The goddess of war and peace, or so it seemed to Shenjara, wanted to remove her as a threat to the peace of the world, already shaken as it was. "A hero, am I? I've caused pain, suffering, and sadness. I've killed my own lover. How does that make me a hero?"
Shenjara felt as though the goddess was mocking her, calling her a hero to sneer at the damage she had caused and the lives she had ended. "You mock the danger I bring to the world by saying I use it for good?"
Shenjara stood up, still dripping from the water. "Good is a word. There is no good and evil, only joy and suffering. What one sees as good brings nothing but sadness to another. The only true Peace is balence, a negation of power. I seek balence for myself. The water-wizard I spoke of earlier has given his power to me, allowing me to right my wrongs. He has given me balence. I seek only to make sure that balence is never corrupted." At this Shenjara's hand flared in a burst of orange and red light, corrupted by shades of blue and white.
Shenjara had only ever been able to bring forth her Torch like this in her dreams. But it had never been infused with other power. Confused, she looked at the ball of what she could only describe as coldfire. "It would seem that balence has indeed begun to show it self. This ball of blue and red energy, usually it holds only the power of Fire. But tonight it holds the control of Ice as well."
Walking towards the other, her eyes took an ethereal glow, the usual effect of her power being substituted for a purplish color. Now within a meter of the other, she locked their gazes once more. "And I shall not be taken down so easy." She said as her world exploded in a flash of blue and red light.
Tshael eyed the ball, and when it was released towards her, she ducked, bringing up her hand. A short wall burst before her from the ground, as the fist had, and curled over to cover her. She felt the cold rush of wind, the crackle of fire within the strange amalgation of colors. The wall crumbled before her and she stood again. As she rose, she wished for her armor and to her surprise, it came. Black delyn shimmered across her arms and chest, down her legs and over her hooves until she stood before the magess in her full war gear.
"Little fool," Tshael hissed as she sidestepped, holding her palms over the ground. "Neutrality is impossible. Stories will be sung about you, and no one sings for those who had no influence."
Tshael snapped her fingers together, binding the threads of earth in her mind. Underneath the two, the ground roared in response, calling out to the one who guided it. Tshael advanced on the magess fast, closing her right fist as she did. When she got within striking distance, she swung at the girl's nose. Her left hand had been balled tight around magic, and let it go. A chain reaction snapped under them, a series of commands executing each other until in a split second, a small spike burst upwards from behind Shenjara.
In the fight, she felt herself as she had once been, enthroned in armor, sitting among the stars. Her heart sang, her skin shivered with delight. As the memories of a goddess guided Tshael's actions, her heart called out into the universe to the one who touched her in battle. In the grass, not far from the two women, the mirror began to darken.
Seeing the fist flying towards her face, her reflexes forced her to duck, causing the blow to strike air. Bringing another ball of combined energy to her hand, Shenjara felt the earth around them shuddering as she realized that the woman was a geomancer. The spike of rock and dirt behind Shenjara would have been protruding from her chest had she not dodged the punch.
Shenjara focused her thoughts on the goddess above her, making the energy ball sure of it's target. With the geomancer so close and in the middle of her attack still, this ball would be unlikely to miss. Channeling a little extra energy, she began to sweat from the fatigue that the extra loss would cause. With the ball a large as she would let it, she released her hold on it, projecting it towards her opponent. "How's this for influence?"
Her fist hit air, and immediately Tshael began to backpedal. She proved, however, too slow for her opponent. The younger mage thrust out another one of those interesting balls of light and it hit true. Her shoulders and abdomen sizzled, the smell of her own burning flesh hitting her like a shovel in the face. Pain exploded, and she screamed. The sound was animalistic, a feral side of the woman that sounded more like a beast than anything else. As she fell back, her partial breastplate pressed against her sweating and bloody skin, strangely cold. Freezing cold.
She moved to stand up, and found pain lancing through her chest. She touched the delyn, amazed at the thin film of frost that she found there. The metal had frozen through, and now her burnt skin was stuck to it. Carefully, she found her feet, moving away from the girl before her. The compilation of elements that she weilded was more powerful that Tshael had guessed they would be, and underestimating her opponent was the one lesson she had never quite learned from Thoracis. The ice mage had taken her out quickly when they battled together, and today she had forgotten the necessity for it.
"Good or evil?" she asked in a voice hoarse with anger, mostly at herself. "You've shed the cloak of neutrality. Are you good or are you evil? There can't be any question, there can't be any fine line."
As she stood, she held out her hand, her fingers working in circles. The web she wove now was tangled, the black widow's box of surprises with knots that danced around one another. It had been a while since she had woven in this pattern, and her eyes kept a close eye on Shenjara as her hands worked in the air. As she started the first knots, something seemed wrong.
"Who else is here?" she demanded. The threads of life were buzzing with the puzzle, and she felt that she couldn't control such strange strands. Something was coming to the surface, a great leviathan of power. It came not from the girl, but from elsewhere. It had a feel of masculinity to it, bringing the scent of spices and autumn winds to the breeze that had been so full of creative Springtime.
"What man did you bring with you?" she asked again, her fury spiking the grass with a white film of poison just around her hooves. The mirror was black, and a ripple pulled against the surface. It began to change shape, twisting and turning at the edges slowly, unseen by Tshael so far away. Her focus was on the girl before her. Was the unseen magic aiding her spellcraft?
As Tshael glared at the girl with hate, the wind howled a crisp Fall protest.
Her quick reaction had worked to her advantage. The woman had not been able to dodge her spell this time, and the effects of the combination of Flame and Ice could be seen, the woman's skin charred and at the same time, cold. The woman began weaving together a new spell, her fingers moving furiously to create an arcane web.
However, something appeared to be wrong, as the woman's face hardened, clearly frustrated. Apparently, Joran's presence had influenced the spell, and she was unable to perform the ritual. Shenjara called out to his spirit.
"What's going on? Are you doing something to her spell? With regard to her reaction, I have to thank you. It might not have been pleasant had she finished."
His voice echoed in her mind. "I'm not sure. I might be disrupting the flow of energy to her. She is not a Weaver, from what I gather, and seems unable to cast as proficiently as usual for a geomancer of her power."
Shenjara gasped at this. "You can sense her power? How? Does being a spirit give you that ability?" she replied, silence being the sound in the environment. "How powerful is she, really?"
Once again, she felt his voice in her mind. "Yes, I can sense power. You yourself seem to be...hmm hmm....on fire....with power. She, on the other hand, is painful to look at. She shines like the mid-morning sun. She may very well be as she says, a goddess incarnate."
Sighing, she answered back, "Should I tell her about you? Should I reveal your presence to her?"
"Be my guest. Just, don't tell her where I am. She looks like she wants to...ahem...kill me."
Giggling, Shenjara did as he told her. Their entire conversation seemed to have taken place in a matter of seconds, as the scene had changed very little. "Firstly, what did you mean when you said I have shed the cloak of neutrality? If not neutral, then what am I? Oh, as for your question, yes. There is indeed someone here." Locking gazes once more, "You remember the boy, correct? The one I killed in the fire? His spirit is here in this dream. I had planned to meet with him tonight, but you showed up as well. Why do you ask?"
Tshael's frown twisted into a sneer as the girl giggled. Did she think this was some game? The wind lifted Tshael's tresses, whipping them about her face as she stood in the malestrom of power that surrounded the glade. As the woman explained the feeling of utter maleness that had permeated the place, she turned her back, taking a few steps from the girl. There, she caught sight of something glistening in the taller grass. In a trail from it, the grass was broken where she had stepped, though the blades around the broken spots were higher than the other places. She had been there before, when she had looked into the mirror.
Leaning her head back, Tshael closed her eyes, inhaling the scent. This was no boy that had grown up with a young woman. The crisp scent of autumn heralded the coming frost, the strength of men in the fields. She had smelled Autumn before, on the pillow beside hers, so briefly. She closed her eyes and inhaled Thoracis, the Alerian general that had been so long gone from her sight.
"Such a sweet thing," Tshael said, her voice triumphant and joyous after her anger and bitter attack of Shenjara. "The ghost defends his murderer." She began to walk, placing her feet where the carpet of green now lay broken. Her soul was straining, giddy at what she thought she could make out just ahead. And with a few more steps, she came to it. A black mask lay in the weeds were she had kicked the mirror to. It's features were burned into her memory, every curve like the curve of a lover to her. In a way, they were. She bent down, took the mask in her hands and turned back to Shenjara.
"I asked you before, Magess Flamespire, if you were good or evil. Those who are truely neutral do not act. They do not change the flow of events. Even in defense, you have changed something. You brought pain. You have taken a stand. You need to know which side of the line you are on." She held up the mask, so that the top of it touched the bottom of her nose. Her proof was there. The smell of Thoracis was there. It was these spiced Alerian winds that came to her at night, when the lone darkness threatened to capture all her hope.
"Hope..." she murmured, as she grinned sadisticly over the black porcelain. "is key." She raised the mask, held it over her face so that she was staring at Shenjara for several moments and then let go. It stayed there, against all physical evidence, with two angry golden eyes burning from the black visage of a snarling demon. She thrust out her hand, her palm downwards and concentrated. She had brought the armor. She was sure that Thoracis had sent some small part of himself, the mask. Now, she needed the one other thing from her past that she had been neglecting. In her hands, a wooden handle appeared. A silver chain flowed down quickly, trailing like liquid guided by an invisible hand until it began to bead and ball at the end of the chain. Within moments, she was holding a mace, the word "Perfection" inscribed delicately between the spikes that stuck out from it.
"Tell me, Shenjara Flamespire," she said, her voice only slightly muffled into a soft thunder by the mask. "When the darkness comes, where is your hope?"
Shenjara gasped and took a step back, the woman's gaze through the mask unexplainably giving her a feeling of fear. The mask was black, reminding Shenjara of darkness, in which her fear was greatest. She had an extreme fear of darkness, often using her abilities to dispel it with the flaming light.
Shenjara tripped over herself, falling on her butt at the sight of the morningstar the woman now wielded. It was a fearsome weapon, calling out to her heart and blood. A sense of death began to fill her thoughts, overwhelming all else. Under such a fierce attack on her mental defenses, Shenjara lost much control over herself, the fear coming to the surface like a bubblw of air in a lake. The part of her mind that was usually in control screamed "NO!" at the rest of it, that part knowing more about what to do than the rest.
The words of the other rang in her head, calling attention to the woman's words from the chaotic thoughts and ideas, enough that she could regain control, if only for a minute. With a hold on her thoughts, for the moment, Shenjara stood up and once again stared straight at the other. Answering her question, "In darkness, hope does not exist, only fear. Only suffering, not joy, comes from darkness. My salvation is the light from within, the ever powerful Flame of Old a roaring blaze inside my heart, ever shining, ever strong."
Drawing upon the Flame of her heart, and the Ice of her mind, Shenjara focused yet another ball, this one not in her hand, however. Shenjara's arm flew up, her finger outstretched toward the woman. "Your presence speaks only of darkness. There is no hope to be found. No joy, no laughter, only the pain and suffering."
Directly above the woman's head, a small ball of red and blue energy formed. Sweat flowed from the pores on Shenjara's forehead as she exerted herself to conjure the power into a point far from her hand.
She could almost see the threads of energy flowing from her outstretched finger to the ball, which had not, as of yet, flared into existance and was still energy. The ball was unstable however, and when it flared to existance, it would fall some and explode, much to the suprise of both.
The ball above her head crackled with electricity. She could feel it pulling at her hair, the long waving strands of ruby vibrating into her skull. This was it, the last stand of the girl who stood before her. She had never answered the question, but Tshael was wise enough to know the answer. Those who had power, but not the sight to see Lady Hope calling from the darkness, became the darkness. There was once a time when those who rose from Althanas dust were both strong in mind and spirit, but it had been a long time since Tshael had crossed the path of one such as that. Shenjara Flamespire had power, that was certain, but what Tshael had seen of the girl's goodness left something to be desired.
In the light of the dancing ball, Tshael's own shadow stretched outward, dancing across the glade toward where the girl had fallen and stood again. Fear was fueling the light, and fear fueled the pain that it would surely bring. Tshael had no intention of letting that pain come over her again, so she began to move. Turning her hooves so that she moved to the side as she came forward, she kept distance between herself and the girl. The larger stones in the stream were easy steps that led her across the small body of water, cold touches rushing across her hooves and up her legs. The lapping liquid was nearly ice as it soaked through the fur on her ankles, and thinking of it, Tshael grinned behind the mask.
She began to crank her arm, building the iron spiked ball into a circle, letting it spin for now. Concentrating on her weapon, her magic, and the memories of when she'd faced her lover in battle, Tshael kept moving, shoving her intentions into the ether. Webs were strengthened this way, shields forged, and attacks claimed. Within her memories, the goddess that she had been surfaced. She had been the ultimate healer, but to heal, one had to know all about how the bones broke. To save a person, you had to know how they were destroyed. This flip of a child was as good as gone, in her perspective.
Finally, she stepped forward. A cold light had begun to shimmer along Perfection's spikes. As Tshael slowed the spin, the glossy coating of blue light crystalized, cold ice gathering in tiny blades across the spikes. Behind Shenjara, a thick vine looped from the earth, covered in thorns and bunches of white flowers, flecked with blue. They snapped forward, intending on catching Shenjara's legs and waist in the long rope. Without waiting for them to get a hold on the girl, Tshael burst forward, swinging the fortified ball towards the girl's head.
Shenjara Flamespire claimed that Tshael brought the darkness, devoid of hope; where Hope was lost, Hell came.
Seeing the woman move away from the ball, Shenjara pulled as much of the energy back as she possibly could, watching the woman as she did. As she nearly finished, the woman charged at her, wielding her fearsome morningstar. The sound of something breaking out of the ground behind her reached her ears, and she knew she wouldn't be able to dodge her way out of this one.
Fear overcame her. Two arms flew up in front of her face, blocking the sight from her view as if it would all go away. She screamed from the sensation coursing throughout her entire body, the one that told you that you were about to die, and that there was nothing you could do to stop it.
An eternity passed by, but neither her back felt anything, nor did the other's weapon make contact. Opening her eyes and looking at the scene, the attacker seemed to have stopped mid-swing, the morningstar held up in the air. Shenjara looked around, seeing two vines struggling for no apparent reason.
Then, she noticed it. She felt a presence completely new to her, and saw the air a few feet around her seem to shimmer. Where the air was shimmering, the morningstar and vines were pressed, seemingly unable to penetrate the shell of hardened air. Reaching out, her hand felt a hard surface, as though a dome of solid air had formed around her, protecting her from the attacks.
The shell disappeared, and Shenjara suddenly felt a little drained. But no matter how tired she felt, there was danger around her. Calling on one the spells she actually knew about, she charged towards the other woman, pulling the image of an icy wasteland into her mind. This was usually the first step, before the somatic and verbal steps that all were part of a spell ritual. But the way things were turning out, it would probably evoke the energy straight away.
Sure enough, when the image had fully come to fill her thoughts, the area around her was flooded with chilling energy. However, it seemed that the elements were mixing again, as an aura of heat surrounded her, the energies negating each other and protecting her from her indiscriminate spell. The area around her, however, was now super-saturated with frozen energies.
Not bothering to stick around to see if the spell had any positive effect, Shenjara backpedaled away, putting as much distance between her and the supposed goddess. She didn't want to take the chance that there would be a morningstar coming for her when she wasn't expecting it.
An angry screech of rage fell from Tshael's lips as her attack met nothing but air. Literal air, hardened into a shell, kept her vines at bay, caught the icy spikes of her weapon. She ripped Perfection from it's place, glaring through the glassy sheen at the girl she found there. One of her hands was held up, holding the vines still. As she calmed the vines, she noticed her hand was shaking. The freezing of her breastplate earlier was taking it's toll, and she was growing cold as death.
As the girl got out of her shield and began to run away, Tshael noticed that where from her body, a pale carpet covered the plantlife on the ground. Frost moved and glided it's way out from Shenjara, who was unexplainably not freezing to death. Tshael's shivering only grew moreso, and the battlemaiden finally sunk to her knees among the grass. The vines came slithering towards her, thorns falling off as if they'd been pulled by an invisible hand, curling around her arms and legs. The blossoms were dying, but she was at least comforted by these creations of hers. They, and the new winter of the glade only served to remind her of her son. Snow began to fall, in flakes as large and pressing as the day she'd last seen sweet Tsyliss.
Her brown-eyed baby was all she had, the only relic from the man in the black mask who had came into her life and heart in both pain and compassion. As her anger was chilled out of her by the breeze, she thought she felt some memory of warmth around her shoulders. Her armor and weapon began to crumble, the iron and steel becoming white dust before her very eyes, mixing with the snow, as if things such as iron and delyn were never black to begin with. Her defenses were down, and she crouched, her nude body drawn over her knees, staring at the frost. A touch on her back, and she turned to see a man standing there. His mask matched hers, and as she gasped, the porcelain that covered her face dropped onto the ground. The world stopped as this ghost of Thoracis stooped over her, drawing in the ice around her. As his mask became lacy with the frost that danced over it, she warmed.
"You fool," she whispered to the image her mind had brought forth. So had he given her strength to help her move past her rage, he now was taking that bitter touch from her. The ice flowed from his mask to his face, and engulfed his body until he was merely a statue before her. She reached up to touch him, to feel the contour of his cheek behind the mask one last time, but found the blast of chill that hovered around him like a warning aura too much to handle.
Her shoulders bowed in exhaustion and grief, Tshael stood and faced down Shenjara Flamespire one last time. The stream that gurgled beside her began to shine with a light that came from the stones under the current, and she held out her hands, palms skyward instead of downward where she could seek the earth. Flowers burst from the snow, like Springtime itself had woken suddenly in the night after a bad dream.
"I will come again for my answers." she told the redhead across from her quietly, and stepped into the light.
As the woman's armor dissolved, Shenjara cringed and looked away. She had always been a little uncomfortable about nudity, and the woman was, in fact, nude. She felt a little insecure, the other woman being more well-endowed than she was, leaving her with a slight sense of jealousy.
The woman disappeared into a light coming up from the stream, leaving Shenjara alone in the dream. The scene dissolved in front of her eyes, leaving nothing but blackness, the usual scenery of her dream-meetings with Joran.
She jumped at that thought. Where was Joran? She was entirely alone, this time. The dream felt a bit empty without him nearby, and she was quite lonely. Nothing was there except for her. Nothing except for her and a slight tingle in her back. Reaching back to scratch at it, she felt something protruding from the itchy spot. It was soft, yet hard at the same time.
She ran her fingers down from the soft/hard protrusion and felt more softness, almost like feathers. She looked back and saw a wing. And on the other side, a match for it could be found, both almost as large as her body. Looking forward, she realized it wasn't black anymore. Instead, there was sky-blue as far as the eye could see. Clouds dotted the scenery, giving her the sense that she was flying.
A flash of light annouced Joran's entrance. His voice once again echoed in her mind. "This is the Elemental Plane of Air. That shield that you summoned against that woman used energy from here."
She nodded her head to show she understood. However, the wings on her back were confusing. "What's with the wings, though? I've never had wings in any of my dreams before. Why now?"
He chuckled his reply into her mind. "That is an illusion. I did it so it would be less awkward to be floating in the middle of the air. With the wings, you have something as a reasonable explanation."
She smirked and sarcastically replied, "Just like how I needed something to protect me from the Plane of Fire? So what was the point of this dream. I nearly got killed by that woman, and it isn't like I can use any of those spells outside the dream."
Sighing, he explained to her, "This was meant to be something of a prediction of your future abilities. As you grow more powerful, you will be able to do things like you did against that woman, and more. You will be able, eventually, to wield the power of the earth element much like she did. And even more powerful, the powers of the Astral Plane itself. Such abilities transcend the physical world and can be used to manipulate the minds of others."
Interested, Shenjara listened to every word. The last sentence intrigued her, "You mean like telepathy? I'm no psychic. Don't you have to be born with those abilities?"
He replied solemnly, "Yes, usually you do need to be born psionic. However, people who become exceptionally powerful with the elements, and can Weave, are powerful enough that they can manipulate the Astral Plane even when awake. It is very strong magic, however, and it will take far more practice to master than anything before."
"Hmm. So this entire dream was just meant to tell me what I will be able to do if I keep on my journey? No offense, but you could have just told me instead of putting me in danger. I really am amazed that I didn't end up impaled upon a spike of that morningstar of her's. Next time we do something like this, no group effort, please."
Joran's spirit backed up a little bit, Shenjara's eyes glowing a bit. "Hehe, no need to be angry. I knew you'd be alright...Oh! The sun's already risen! Time to wake up, Shen!"
The dream faded and her eyes snapped open to the sight of Kishurin standing over her. "Hey, Shen. It's time to wake up. You want to break your fast while the food is still palatable, right?"
Confused as to how she had been ejected from the dream so quickly, she answered sluggishly. "Y-yes. I, uh, guess so." She would ponder it later. For now, she was hungry. The dream fight had drained her and she needed to regain some of the strength she had lost. Sitting up and looking at Kishurin, she said, "I hope we don't come across any bandits today."
Tshael breathed deeply, the scents of Radasanthian morning coming in. Her stomach growled impatiently as she picked up the smells from the hotel bakery, overpowering the horses that came in on the road that passed by. Their clopping hooves and the calls of their riders, however, found a way to penetrate the stillness in the room, and it was with great hesitation that Tshael finally sat up. The quilt had been kicked to the footboard of the bed at some time during the night, and the room hung with the chill of a late winter morning. She gathered the quilt around her and walked to the window, brushing Morpheus' sand from her eyes as she stared out.
The sun was hovering just under the horizon, threatening to peek out at any moment. The sky was awash with colors, and she could see the fog creeping along the tops of the fields. The window opened easily, and she leaned out, watching the fog of her breath cloud and dissappear before her vision as she let the chill wake her up. The dream she'd had the night before was already slipping away from her, in the fleeting way that dreams tend to do, but there was one thing that hovered in her mind, refusing to leave with the rest of it's kin. A name, uttered over and over on her lips, she was sure, and the veiled spirit of a face to go with it.
Shenjara Flamespire.
The name, when uttered finally by her lips into the morning, brought a rush of anger to her heart. She felt her expression curl into a sneer, and closed the window against the sharp breeze. The quilt was returned to the bed and she used the basin on the nightstand to wash her face. There were things that had been waiting far too long to be accomplished, and action was now springging into her mind and body. She didn't know where the urgency she found came from, but one thing was certain to her as the sun finally flooded the window curtain with backlight.
The Tshael that had awoken this morning wasn't going to heave things undone, and she wasn't going to leave questions unanswered.
No preliminary comments. Hamnat’s numbers and comments are red, and Tshael’s are green.
STORY
Continuity
I would have liked a little more detail about where Shen came from and was going to. I had no idea where she was in the real world, and I’m still not sure who Kishurin is. Other than that, however, I got a good sense of why the battle was taking place. 5
Same general comment here: why was Tshael in Radasanth? That being said, at least I knew where you were. Again, well done setting the premise for the battle. 6
Setting
You would occasionally forget about your surroundings in your attempt to respond to Tshael’s actions. Remember that your environment doesn’t disappear just because your opponent is thirsting for your blood. Other than that, an adequate job in general of describing the scene and your attacks. 4
Excellent interaction with your surroundings in general. One thing, though, is that you might want to refresh your reader’s memory on what your setting looks like. There were a few points in the story that my reaction was something like “What the… there were deer there?” or “Where did the stream come from?” After looking back, I noticed that you did mention them, but you might try reminding the reader of their existence once in awhile so they don’t jump out of nowhere like that. 7
Pacing
Good. You know the ropes when it comes to moving a battle along. Not too much else to say here. 6
Same thing. 6
CHARACTER
Dialogue
I’m not sure whether Shenjara’s dialogue was actually how she talks or how you write. Remember that people very rarely speak in perfect grammar. Shen’s words just seemed a little too… formal to me, especially in the heat of battle. Other than that, her dialogue fit the story and the situation. 5
Same comment, to a somewhat lesser extent. It seemed like it fit Tshael a bit more. 6
Action
Here is the main area where I thought you could do better. It was clear from the start who controlled this quest, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improvise and be creative. Everything Shen did was exactly what I expected her to do. Flip it up a little bit, be original. Magic is nothing if not versatile, and I saw none of that versatility from Shenjara here. 4
What was Hamnat’s weakest area was arguably your strongest. Tshael’s actions stuck to the story, but you threw in a bunch of little twists and surprises that really brought the battle to life from your perspective. In particular, I loved how you pulled Thoracis’s mask from the mirror. That was a very original touch. 8
Persona
I’d think that Shen would be mournful, not happy, when talking to the ghost of the one she loved. In fact, there were a few of her emotions that didn’t really connect to me. Why did she attack Tshael so quickly? I would have thought she would try reasoning and running before resorting to force. Why was she so hostile in the first place? I would have thought she’d seek comfort in a kindred spirit. 4
I have similar qualms with your side. Why did she attack Shen? It was a battle, I understand that, but it seems like the reason for conflict was forced from both sides. 5
WRITING STYLE
Mechanics
Pretty solid. There were a few grammatical and spelling errors speckled here and there. 6
Same thing. 6
Technique
I couldn’t really get a feel for your style. To be completely honest, I kind of felt like you were mimicking Tshael’s style at points. That being said, there was nothing really wrong here. 5
You show a lot more experience and flair with your style. It’s clear to me that this is how you write, and it has been for a long time. It was a joy to read. 7
Clarity
Very clear, I always understood what was going on from your end. No complaints. 7
There were a few cases where you got a bit ‘flowery’ and it was a little hard to follow. Nothing that detracted from the flow, but present nonetheless. 6
Wild Card
Both of you take 6’s. It had a few faults, but it was an entertaining read. 6
Both of you take 6’s. It had a few faults, but it was an entertaining read. 6
Final Score: 52 - 63
Tshael, as winner, gains 1375 exp.
Hamnat, as loser, gains 250 exp.
Cyrus the virus
02-08-07, 05:35 PM
EXP added!
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2024 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.