The odd pair made their way up north alongside the narrow coastline, the ocean on their left and jagged, rocky cliffs bordering their right side. The roegadyn's eyes swept the harshly lapping waters that occasionally threatened to drag the lalafell that followed away with its tides. Cypress hadn't smelled anything but the salty sea air in sometime though, having left the the Vesper Bay behind sometime ago.
Ulanan was showing all the signs of being bored, getting too close to the waves and then outrunning them. She had done this a number of times before getting tired of it. Now she was walking very oddly, trying to step only where the roegadyn had left tracks. Even with these distractions, she kept looking around, with their goal firmly in mind.
Cypress appeared to be doing a good job ignoring Ulanan's antics, so much so that she might have even truly forgotten that she was there for the moment, not so much as glancing back to see if she was there for quite sometime.
The land north of Vesper Bay hadn't been much used since the Garleans had set up a base in that part of the world. Even though the Garleans had been defeated and that place destroyed, the traffic along the northern beaches had not returned. There were no settlements here. No camps. Life was mostly undisturbed.
And so a knot of wreckage was an unnatural sight. All remains from the battles with the Garleans would be significantly north of here. All civilization should have been significantly south. This derelict shipping vessel, obliterated as though crushed against great stones that were not present, was well out-of-place.
And fresh. The body half-buried beneath its bow was pale, but had not rotted. It was soggy, with kelp and sand all over it. The ship carried the promise of more like it, glistening in the sun, yet unspoiled but spoiling quickly.
The lalafell stopped on top of one of the tracks made by Cypress. "A shipwreck." she pointed out redundantly, adjusting her hat over her head. "That's going to make finding a specific body quite difficult. It also looks rather odd. Where did it smash itself like so?"
The breeze brought with it faint traces of sulfur, as they neared ruin of timber. "What makes you think that her body is in that?" Her booted feet carried her closer. "It is worth looking at though."
"People inside ships that are about to be wrecked usually jump out, or get thrown away with the impact. They end up in the sea, and then the sea washes them across the shore." Ulanan explained, grumpily. "Of course she's not there, but the men who died and fell off...ah!" She grumped some more, stomping her feet and throwing a small cloud of sand around her boots. "Why do I bother explaining what I meant? I'm a parasite. Just do whatever while I keep on leeching on your whatever it is I'm leeching!" With that said, she continued following her.
"Nothing you said made any sense... Oh. You meant that if we were to find a pile of bodies, there being a pile would make it harder to find hers. Except that that doesn't make any more sense. We are not looking through haystacks." Cypress let her bright gaze run up the side of the ship next to her, placing her hand on it as she walked alongside it.
"I see basic logic and intuition is beyond you. But I forgive you." Ulanan bite at the air. She took off her hat and stuck her hand inside. After a moment, she took out a small gemstone and a short silver handle. She attached them together, forming a flimsy but perfectly usable thaumaturgic wand.
Making her way towards the bow of the ship, the body that had wedged itself there came into view. Cypress waved a hand towards it, "Well, there is a body, Ulanan. Clearly, that is not the girl. Is your theory about a lot of bodies making things hard to find her still accurate?"
The shadows on the side of the vessel opposite Cypress shifted, subtly, as though the wind were brushing through them. The scent of sulfur was stirred like pollen. Something dark shifted in the bones of the ship, as though it had been dozing.
"It will if this was a passenger ship and women were on board." she replied with the hat back on her head.
The red woman took in a deep, lungful of breath. Yes. There was something here. She could see the near invisible specks of darkness floating through the air as if the ship was mold infested. "Take care, parasite. I see fingerprints of the void here."
Well, I will pray so that they do not rip off your legs." Ulanan offered, starring a the vessel. "And I will certainly not hope them to hurt you. At all. Are we going inside?"
"Hmm." The roegadyn sniffed at the air, "I suppose."
Before they can move to get inside, however, the shadows seem to bleed towards the water. It as if a sun is setting inland and casting new, long, deeper shadows into the sea. But the shadows detach from the sources and bleed that way, like oil, and congregate in the water. Obscured by the moving waves, something thin and black shifts just under the shallow water.
Ulanan raised her wand, aether shifting across the handle into the gemstone, and then outwards, forming a protective invisible shell around her that soon was replicated around Cypress.
Small, blunt brows came together as the shadows elongated and creeped towards the pair. "Yes, the void has most definitely touched this place." A new scent took to the air in the form of lightly toasted flesh as Cypress's skin crackled with burning veins.
After several seconds, the thin presence in the water began to expand upward, growing. A rounded shape lifted from the water, shifting back and forth as though trying to free itself. It segmented and grew angles. The darkness waned into translucent gray with bones inside. Shoulders and neck separated, skulls rising inside an amorphous head. A maw opened and closed. The great canid seemed to climb intact from the mud.
Ulanan, showing how a very patient person she was, thumped her wand in the air, releasing a sphere of fire that flew towards the creature.
Cypress walked towards it steadily as more of her body was consumed by her aether, the tips of her hair even emitting the magical fire, her right hand a torch. Surprisingly, her armored dress remained untouched, but as she closed in on the beast, she too, tossed a fireball from her hand.
The beast didn't seem to notice either of them until Ulanan's first fireball struck it dead-on, at which point it lurched to the side and opened its maw as though to screech. Its only sound was the clicking of bone, however. The skulls that made up its teeth, the beaks of long-dead vultures, had been left yellowed by an attack Ulanan had used on it previously: one involving corrosive fumes. Several of those skull shattered.
When Cypress' fireball arrived, the beast had not yet discerned the location of its attackers. It lurched the opposite way, stirring up salt water and silt. It panicked like an attacked dog, lifting up from the ground and throwing itself beachward. Its large body slammed into the side of the fishing boat and smashed through the wood, crushing the half-buried body.
Changing direction with the demon's sudden movement, Cypress actually picked up the pace of her movement, she reached up to the wood of the boat, but it was yet too wet to catch on fire.
The lalafell moved her wand sideways, the aether forming fire around the gemstone. She picked up rhythm, wielding her focus in one direction and then abruptly changing it, releasing fire with each swing. Three fireballs identical to the first one were flung in the direction of the beast.
The beast snapped at the air, as though it thought the splinters thrown from the wood it had shattered were attacking it. It took the first of Ulanan's new volley as hard as the last, knocked back into the wood of the boat and breaking it forward. Then it leapt up onto the boat to get away, and the fireballs hit nothing but wood.
From another place along the coast, well behind Ulanan, a much smaller, dark presence crawled from the water. It moved as a crippled body would, dragging itself up from the sea, dripping dark water and glistening with salt. It was not D'aijeen, but a pale-skinned Elezen child, crawling silently forth.
Cypress was helpless to pull the beast back down to her, but with a little push, she could try to make the boat that it stood on burn to the ground. Putting her hand on the moist wooden frame, her eyes intent upon the beast, she forced out an aetheric fire, hotter and more durable than that which now naturally flicked off her skin.
The aether washing over Ulanan's wand shifted aspects, becoming cold, freezing the air. She didn't loosen it, though, as she couldn't see the beast. To change that, she ran to a side in a curve, trying to quickly get on the opposite side of the boat and at a safe distance.
The beast shifted on the boat, looking around, snapping at the air. It was concealed for a moment as it tasted the air, as it tried to discern where the threat was coming from. And then the boat was burning, fire hot enough that the water did not slow it ripping through the wood. Quickly, the stink of scorched mildew and immolated bodies wafted into the air. The canid could be heard clicking in the middle of it.
Then the monster smashed through the fire and the wood, breaking through the wall immediately in front of Cypress, seemingly without concern for the fire around it. Its broken teeth and maw extended from the haze to snap at the woman.
The sounds of crunching wood fell behind the beast as she raised and threw her burning fist into the voidful jaw as its shadowed figure emerged from the flames. Thoughts of the lalafell's actions didn't even strike across her mind. She was far too used to working alone to take into account the safety of others, despite her mission's ultimate purpouse.
The short mage had moved far enough as to be safe from the attack, but not enough to reach her desired destination. Quick on her thoughts, she waved her wand, sending a magical spike of ice at the side of the beast.
From there, she took a glimpse of the small form that was crawling out of the sea.
The "teeth" of the monster shattered when Cypress struck it, making it recoil back into the burning boat which, thanks to its own violent movements, was now crumbling around it. Lines of fire curled against the beast's ephemeral flanks, the heat enough to darken the bones inside of it. The thing twisted, and began to climb upward to get away, but a shaft of ice struck it and knocked it down once more.
The figure of the child on the beach watched the boat burn down. It pushed itself up and stood hunched, dark hair and dark eyes wide and confused at what it was seeing.
Cypress stepped into the crumbling boat after the beast, the fire if anything seemed to feed back into her as flames lapped around the edges of her dragonhide boots that had been passed down through the generations. She came down to her knees beside the fallen demon using the motion to bring her large, crackling palm down onto its large skull.
Ulanan, deciding ice would do more to hinder than to help, focused her attention on the small person on the distance. Her wand still crackled with cold aether.
"Kid! Stay there!" she shouted. "Don't come any closer!"
The shadows of the canid's head sizzled, boiling under Cypress palm, and gave way so that her hand pressed down on the bundle of vulture skulls behind its face. The monster writhed and clawed at the ground, but couldn't manage to move.
The figure on the beach flicked its gaze to Ulanan, and then back to where the boat was burning.
The hellsguard kept the hand down on the bundle of skulls as she quickly rummaged the knapsack with her other hand having withdraw the fire from that appendage back within herself. She drew forth a very simplistic one-shot crystal vial and syringe.
The beast snapped its maw, trying to get at Cypress legs or feet, any part of her that came near it. Its claws tore at the burning wood around it.
Ulanan shifted her attention, concluding that the kid was not undead or a voidsent. She raised her wand high above her head and then swung it violently towards the creature. The chilling air around the gemstone moved across the air, its coldness dissipating. The aether remained, however, and it slammed down on the unnatural beast with great force. It was not enough to crush it, but perhaps enough to restrain it like a great weight, she hoped.
Cinders flaked from her leg as an scrambling claw caught hold of her leg. Blood seeped down from the cut, the burnt flesh pulled away, it dropped down her leg and sizzled as it landed in the fires. Cypress ignored it though, gritting her teeth down and jabbing the syringe into a fleshy part of the voidsent, drawing forth from it a viscous black ooze.
Ulanan's spell worked as intended. The monster lay still as Cypress worked. It's only complaint came in the clicking of bones as the cracked under the abuse, weakened by the heat of the fire.
The child, watched the burning boat, took a step away and began to hobble down the beach away from the fire.
"What are you doing?" Ulanan questioned the roegadyn's actions with a shout. "Can we kill it already?"
Cypress ignored Ulanan words, or at least didn't respond to them as she stowed the hollowed crystal full of voidsent blood away in her pouch. She did send a further blast of aether threw her hand as brought the fingers of it together to crush skull the further.
The many vulture skulls inside of the canid's head cracked under the pressure applied to them. The beast scrambled and struggled like a thing drowning, as though it were being choked to death. But it was held in place by the very precise pressure Cypress was applying and Ulanan's lingering spell. It struggled for only a moment before the skulls finally broke into a collection of bone shards that collapsed inward. At once, the shadows melted away, just like a fresh light was shining upon them. The great spine and various animal bones that the shadows had contained fell limp to the wooden floor of the boat.
The lalafell dropped the arm holding the wand and huffed, relieved. The magical energy around the focus weakened, though she kept enough attention on it to keep some over the gemstone.
"I don't want any other surprises. Is that creature done?"
The roegadyn pulled away from the pile of bones and carefully walked from the burning boat. She wasn't quick enough though, to avoid chunks of burning wood falling on her. Had her skin not been already a mess of volcanic fissures, it would have done far more damage. As it was though, she would have some nasty bruises to accompany that bleeding gash on her calf.
As she stepped out of the bow-ward hole that she'd entered through, she caught sight of the little girl limping away down the narrow beach. "Who is that?" she uttered, her voice a cracked mess.
"It's a survivor. I didn't have time to see if they were alright." she answered, turning around towards the kid. The aether on her wand finally dispelled, falling down in drops of water.
"Hey! Kid!" she shouted. She begun to stroll towards her, calmly and steadily. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
The Elezen child, short dark hair and pale skin, tattered clothes soaked through, at first continued to limp away. The figure was thin and taller than a full-grown Miqo'te, though still several heads below the height it would eventually grow to. After a moment, though, it pause, and turned to look over its shoulder. A green earring in the shape of a cactuar swung from one ear. It blinked at Ulanan in silence.
Cypress walked away from the ship and towards the girl and lalafell. her body shuddered as the fissures and embered cracks retreated back below the surface. With that the last of the flames that had danced at the surface of her hand fall to the sands. She'd drained much of her aetheric reserves again. They'd need more time again to build up. Conservation was something she needed to start practicing again, but her frustration and anger liked to get the better of her.
Ulanan stopped at what could be considered "lunge" range from the child. "Don't worry. We finished that monster." she said, sounding reassuring. "Are you hurt? We can help you." she added.
The child blinked at Ulanan. It looked at Cypress, expression unreadable but dark eyes wide, and then back to the Lalefel. "I can walk back to Vesper Bay on my own." The voice was smooth and androgynous, and did not evidence any pain or injury.
Dragonhide boots carried Cypress to the pair, her sharp, bright eyes taking in the little girl whose appearance was all too coincidental for the roegadyn that resolutely didn't believe in such things; Althyk never arranged for such without a purpouse. She smelt nothing on the wind, but the recently possessed rarely showed such signs right away. Her voice was cold even as it cracked, "But I saw your limp. You're too hurt to walk all those miles."
Ulanan frowned, dropping her head slightly. Her grip on the wand tightened. "Were you in that ship? Was anyone with you? We can look for them, make sure they are safe."
"There aren't any survivors." The Elezen said. The the child looked up at Cypress. "I am fine. You're frightening. Let me walk alone. If I'm wrong, you'll find me on the beach on your way back, won't you?"
Cypress reached where Ulanan now was, "I may be frightening, but I am far less so than what you just walked from. And I know some healing." A little lie to someone possessed would mean nothing. "Let me look at that leg." Her strong, proud facial features brokered no kindness in them though.
Ulanan said nothing else. She watched up to Cypress, and then back to the kid.
"Absolutely not. The shipwreck did not claim my pride." The child's chin lifted. "You will cease molesting me immediately."
"How did this happen?" the lalafell asked, gesturing with her head to the ship. "Was it that voidsent we fought?"
"Perhaps. I do not remember. Goodbye." The Elezen turned away, chain of the earring clattering, and began to limp in the direction of Vesper Bay.
As the girl turned to leave them, Cypress took a long step towards her and made a grab for her thin wrist.
The child made a sound of both dismay and pain as Cypress' claws closed around one bony wrist.
Ulanan threw her hands into the air. "Please!" she exclaimed to the Roegadyn. "Don't be that harsh! She might just be a kid and not a voidsent!"
If anything Cypress's grip tightened, "There is no such thing as coincidence."
The child didn't complain in words, groaning and making a token show of pulling away. A look of concern was cast towards Ulanan.
"I'm not going to question your world view." she commented. "But I question your methods. Let her go. If you are so worried about that, just follow her."
"If she is not possessed, then she'll have no worry in sitting down for an exam," Cypress yanked the child towards her, gentleness not present in her blood. "I'm amazed that after everything you've seen, you're willing to accept that a child involved in a voidsent induced shipwreck, witness to a violent altercation, simply walks away without so much tear in her eye or panic in her voice? She instantly showed more fear of me than any of those things."
"Elezen are proud like that. I'm just careful because I don't like the idea of burning people who might NOT be voidsent." she grumped in reply.
"Or who might be a voidsent AND a living child!" The Elezen spun on Cypress as the woman pulled. One thin arm reaching up, the child's fingers pointed towards Cypress' face and dark lines, like black icicles, shot directly for the Roegadyn's eyes.
Cypress was surprised, her bright copper eyes widening at the black daggers that came at them. And in that same moment her mind whispered, 'I told you so' to the parasite. And then there was simply darkness. And pain as her throat involuntarily let out at crackling roar.
The last dregs of her aether ripped through her, a wildfire that spread to everything it touched. It grounded was well-grounded in her boots, but it most certainly scorched the dainty wrist that captured within Cypress's own red hand.
Ulanan gave a jump backwards, unable to stop the attack or even see it coming before the kid was done speaking. She retaliated, the aether from her body thundering through her to the wand, and from there through the air to hit the kid with an electrical blast.
A pained cry ripped out of the child when first fire and then lightning struck the small body. But the cries ceased too quickly, and then it growled at Ulanan. "You torture an innocent."
"Then let her go!" she replied with a bark, accompanying her words with another magical blast.
Cypress could feel the cool streaks of what she assumed to be blood running down her smooth cheeks. Her body's involuntary reaction over, she found the sensation strangely calming. Even as her stomach wanted nothing more than to retch and her head felt like someone had stuffed cotton into her ears. She still had her presence of mind and the girl's wrist in her hand. She reached with her other one through the darkness to grasp up the girls arm just north of where her anchored hand was, "Just kill it," She gasped at Ulanan.
"I'm not letting go! The child's screaming inside!" The child couldn't fight either of them. Ulanan's magic was burning away that pale skin, darkening it viciously. "You'll be murderers!"
Sparks formed around the lalafell's wand. They grew in size, becoming fire. It moved outwards, circling her increasingly rapidly. Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth, letting out a dismissive noise to the voidsent's words. She stayed still for an instant, and then rotated her arm forwards, her legs shifting with the violence of the movement. The fire raised up in a thin torrent and fell upon the kid in an arc.
The child watched the fire arcing downward, and at the last moment, the voidsent seemed to release. The kid struggled against Cypress and tried to escape the fire. Fearful eyes watched, wide, watering, so terrified there wasn't even a scream. As the fire struck the child, however, the scream came. A child's loud, tortuous scream, as she burned alive.
Large red hands clasped around the girl's arm, Cypress held fast even as her stomach churned slightly at the more genuine sounds of pain and suffering. Better to end it here and be cleansed by the fire.
Ulanan let out a broken breath, looking more angry than horrorized by what just happened. She averted her eyes from the kid.
After a time, the child's body slackened and collapsed into the surf. The earring broke off and fell away. The corpse smoked, and smolders. Water bubbled around it, sizzling audibly.
Cypress felt the faint weight tugging at her grip as the not unfamiliar smell of burnt flesh settled firmly into her nostrils. She let it go after a long moments, the feeling of life and a pulse no longer present within the wrist that she had accidentally sheltered from the same magical frying that the rest of the body had endured.
Ulanan was showing all the signs of being bored, getting too close to the waves and then outrunning them. She had done this a number of times before getting tired of it. Now she was walking very oddly, trying to step only where the roegadyn had left tracks. Even with these distractions, she kept looking around, with their goal firmly in mind.
Cypress appeared to be doing a good job ignoring Ulanan's antics, so much so that she might have even truly forgotten that she was there for the moment, not so much as glancing back to see if she was there for quite sometime.
The land north of Vesper Bay hadn't been much used since the Garleans had set up a base in that part of the world. Even though the Garleans had been defeated and that place destroyed, the traffic along the northern beaches had not returned. There were no settlements here. No camps. Life was mostly undisturbed.
And so a knot of wreckage was an unnatural sight. All remains from the battles with the Garleans would be significantly north of here. All civilization should have been significantly south. This derelict shipping vessel, obliterated as though crushed against great stones that were not present, was well out-of-place.
And fresh. The body half-buried beneath its bow was pale, but had not rotted. It was soggy, with kelp and sand all over it. The ship carried the promise of more like it, glistening in the sun, yet unspoiled but spoiling quickly.
The lalafell stopped on top of one of the tracks made by Cypress. "A shipwreck." she pointed out redundantly, adjusting her hat over her head. "That's going to make finding a specific body quite difficult. It also looks rather odd. Where did it smash itself like so?"
The breeze brought with it faint traces of sulfur, as they neared ruin of timber. "What makes you think that her body is in that?" Her booted feet carried her closer. "It is worth looking at though."
"People inside ships that are about to be wrecked usually jump out, or get thrown away with the impact. They end up in the sea, and then the sea washes them across the shore." Ulanan explained, grumpily. "Of course she's not there, but the men who died and fell off...ah!" She grumped some more, stomping her feet and throwing a small cloud of sand around her boots. "Why do I bother explaining what I meant? I'm a parasite. Just do whatever while I keep on leeching on your whatever it is I'm leeching!" With that said, she continued following her.
"Nothing you said made any sense... Oh. You meant that if we were to find a pile of bodies, there being a pile would make it harder to find hers. Except that that doesn't make any more sense. We are not looking through haystacks." Cypress let her bright gaze run up the side of the ship next to her, placing her hand on it as she walked alongside it.
"I see basic logic and intuition is beyond you. But I forgive you." Ulanan bite at the air. She took off her hat and stuck her hand inside. After a moment, she took out a small gemstone and a short silver handle. She attached them together, forming a flimsy but perfectly usable thaumaturgic wand.
Making her way towards the bow of the ship, the body that had wedged itself there came into view. Cypress waved a hand towards it, "Well, there is a body, Ulanan. Clearly, that is not the girl. Is your theory about a lot of bodies making things hard to find her still accurate?"
The shadows on the side of the vessel opposite Cypress shifted, subtly, as though the wind were brushing through them. The scent of sulfur was stirred like pollen. Something dark shifted in the bones of the ship, as though it had been dozing.
"It will if this was a passenger ship and women were on board." she replied with the hat back on her head.
The red woman took in a deep, lungful of breath. Yes. There was something here. She could see the near invisible specks of darkness floating through the air as if the ship was mold infested. "Take care, parasite. I see fingerprints of the void here."
Well, I will pray so that they do not rip off your legs." Ulanan offered, starring a the vessel. "And I will certainly not hope them to hurt you. At all. Are we going inside?"
"Hmm." The roegadyn sniffed at the air, "I suppose."
Before they can move to get inside, however, the shadows seem to bleed towards the water. It as if a sun is setting inland and casting new, long, deeper shadows into the sea. But the shadows detach from the sources and bleed that way, like oil, and congregate in the water. Obscured by the moving waves, something thin and black shifts just under the shallow water.
Ulanan raised her wand, aether shifting across the handle into the gemstone, and then outwards, forming a protective invisible shell around her that soon was replicated around Cypress.
Small, blunt brows came together as the shadows elongated and creeped towards the pair. "Yes, the void has most definitely touched this place." A new scent took to the air in the form of lightly toasted flesh as Cypress's skin crackled with burning veins.
After several seconds, the thin presence in the water began to expand upward, growing. A rounded shape lifted from the water, shifting back and forth as though trying to free itself. It segmented and grew angles. The darkness waned into translucent gray with bones inside. Shoulders and neck separated, skulls rising inside an amorphous head. A maw opened and closed. The great canid seemed to climb intact from the mud.
Ulanan, showing how a very patient person she was, thumped her wand in the air, releasing a sphere of fire that flew towards the creature.
Cypress walked towards it steadily as more of her body was consumed by her aether, the tips of her hair even emitting the magical fire, her right hand a torch. Surprisingly, her armored dress remained untouched, but as she closed in on the beast, she too, tossed a fireball from her hand.
The beast didn't seem to notice either of them until Ulanan's first fireball struck it dead-on, at which point it lurched to the side and opened its maw as though to screech. Its only sound was the clicking of bone, however. The skulls that made up its teeth, the beaks of long-dead vultures, had been left yellowed by an attack Ulanan had used on it previously: one involving corrosive fumes. Several of those skull shattered.
When Cypress' fireball arrived, the beast had not yet discerned the location of its attackers. It lurched the opposite way, stirring up salt water and silt. It panicked like an attacked dog, lifting up from the ground and throwing itself beachward. Its large body slammed into the side of the fishing boat and smashed through the wood, crushing the half-buried body.
Changing direction with the demon's sudden movement, Cypress actually picked up the pace of her movement, she reached up to the wood of the boat, but it was yet too wet to catch on fire.
The lalafell moved her wand sideways, the aether forming fire around the gemstone. She picked up rhythm, wielding her focus in one direction and then abruptly changing it, releasing fire with each swing. Three fireballs identical to the first one were flung in the direction of the beast.
The beast snapped at the air, as though it thought the splinters thrown from the wood it had shattered were attacking it. It took the first of Ulanan's new volley as hard as the last, knocked back into the wood of the boat and breaking it forward. Then it leapt up onto the boat to get away, and the fireballs hit nothing but wood.
From another place along the coast, well behind Ulanan, a much smaller, dark presence crawled from the water. It moved as a crippled body would, dragging itself up from the sea, dripping dark water and glistening with salt. It was not D'aijeen, but a pale-skinned Elezen child, crawling silently forth.
Cypress was helpless to pull the beast back down to her, but with a little push, she could try to make the boat that it stood on burn to the ground. Putting her hand on the moist wooden frame, her eyes intent upon the beast, she forced out an aetheric fire, hotter and more durable than that which now naturally flicked off her skin.
The aether washing over Ulanan's wand shifted aspects, becoming cold, freezing the air. She didn't loosen it, though, as she couldn't see the beast. To change that, she ran to a side in a curve, trying to quickly get on the opposite side of the boat and at a safe distance.
The beast shifted on the boat, looking around, snapping at the air. It was concealed for a moment as it tasted the air, as it tried to discern where the threat was coming from. And then the boat was burning, fire hot enough that the water did not slow it ripping through the wood. Quickly, the stink of scorched mildew and immolated bodies wafted into the air. The canid could be heard clicking in the middle of it.
Then the monster smashed through the fire and the wood, breaking through the wall immediately in front of Cypress, seemingly without concern for the fire around it. Its broken teeth and maw extended from the haze to snap at the woman.
The sounds of crunching wood fell behind the beast as she raised and threw her burning fist into the voidful jaw as its shadowed figure emerged from the flames. Thoughts of the lalafell's actions didn't even strike across her mind. She was far too used to working alone to take into account the safety of others, despite her mission's ultimate purpouse.
The short mage had moved far enough as to be safe from the attack, but not enough to reach her desired destination. Quick on her thoughts, she waved her wand, sending a magical spike of ice at the side of the beast.
From there, she took a glimpse of the small form that was crawling out of the sea.
The "teeth" of the monster shattered when Cypress struck it, making it recoil back into the burning boat which, thanks to its own violent movements, was now crumbling around it. Lines of fire curled against the beast's ephemeral flanks, the heat enough to darken the bones inside of it. The thing twisted, and began to climb upward to get away, but a shaft of ice struck it and knocked it down once more.
The figure of the child on the beach watched the boat burn down. It pushed itself up and stood hunched, dark hair and dark eyes wide and confused at what it was seeing.
Cypress stepped into the crumbling boat after the beast, the fire if anything seemed to feed back into her as flames lapped around the edges of her dragonhide boots that had been passed down through the generations. She came down to her knees beside the fallen demon using the motion to bring her large, crackling palm down onto its large skull.
Ulanan, deciding ice would do more to hinder than to help, focused her attention on the small person on the distance. Her wand still crackled with cold aether.
"Kid! Stay there!" she shouted. "Don't come any closer!"
The shadows of the canid's head sizzled, boiling under Cypress palm, and gave way so that her hand pressed down on the bundle of vulture skulls behind its face. The monster writhed and clawed at the ground, but couldn't manage to move.
The figure on the beach flicked its gaze to Ulanan, and then back to where the boat was burning.
The hellsguard kept the hand down on the bundle of skulls as she quickly rummaged the knapsack with her other hand having withdraw the fire from that appendage back within herself. She drew forth a very simplistic one-shot crystal vial and syringe.
The beast snapped its maw, trying to get at Cypress legs or feet, any part of her that came near it. Its claws tore at the burning wood around it.
Ulanan shifted her attention, concluding that the kid was not undead or a voidsent. She raised her wand high above her head and then swung it violently towards the creature. The chilling air around the gemstone moved across the air, its coldness dissipating. The aether remained, however, and it slammed down on the unnatural beast with great force. It was not enough to crush it, but perhaps enough to restrain it like a great weight, she hoped.
Cinders flaked from her leg as an scrambling claw caught hold of her leg. Blood seeped down from the cut, the burnt flesh pulled away, it dropped down her leg and sizzled as it landed in the fires. Cypress ignored it though, gritting her teeth down and jabbing the syringe into a fleshy part of the voidsent, drawing forth from it a viscous black ooze.
Ulanan's spell worked as intended. The monster lay still as Cypress worked. It's only complaint came in the clicking of bones as the cracked under the abuse, weakened by the heat of the fire.
The child, watched the burning boat, took a step away and began to hobble down the beach away from the fire.
"What are you doing?" Ulanan questioned the roegadyn's actions with a shout. "Can we kill it already?"
Cypress ignored Ulanan words, or at least didn't respond to them as she stowed the hollowed crystal full of voidsent blood away in her pouch. She did send a further blast of aether threw her hand as brought the fingers of it together to crush skull the further.
The many vulture skulls inside of the canid's head cracked under the pressure applied to them. The beast scrambled and struggled like a thing drowning, as though it were being choked to death. But it was held in place by the very precise pressure Cypress was applying and Ulanan's lingering spell. It struggled for only a moment before the skulls finally broke into a collection of bone shards that collapsed inward. At once, the shadows melted away, just like a fresh light was shining upon them. The great spine and various animal bones that the shadows had contained fell limp to the wooden floor of the boat.
The lalafell dropped the arm holding the wand and huffed, relieved. The magical energy around the focus weakened, though she kept enough attention on it to keep some over the gemstone.
"I don't want any other surprises. Is that creature done?"
The roegadyn pulled away from the pile of bones and carefully walked from the burning boat. She wasn't quick enough though, to avoid chunks of burning wood falling on her. Had her skin not been already a mess of volcanic fissures, it would have done far more damage. As it was though, she would have some nasty bruises to accompany that bleeding gash on her calf.
As she stepped out of the bow-ward hole that she'd entered through, she caught sight of the little girl limping away down the narrow beach. "Who is that?" she uttered, her voice a cracked mess.
"It's a survivor. I didn't have time to see if they were alright." she answered, turning around towards the kid. The aether on her wand finally dispelled, falling down in drops of water.
"Hey! Kid!" she shouted. She begun to stroll towards her, calmly and steadily. "Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
The Elezen child, short dark hair and pale skin, tattered clothes soaked through, at first continued to limp away. The figure was thin and taller than a full-grown Miqo'te, though still several heads below the height it would eventually grow to. After a moment, though, it pause, and turned to look over its shoulder. A green earring in the shape of a cactuar swung from one ear. It blinked at Ulanan in silence.
Cypress walked away from the ship and towards the girl and lalafell. her body shuddered as the fissures and embered cracks retreated back below the surface. With that the last of the flames that had danced at the surface of her hand fall to the sands. She'd drained much of her aetheric reserves again. They'd need more time again to build up. Conservation was something she needed to start practicing again, but her frustration and anger liked to get the better of her.
Ulanan stopped at what could be considered "lunge" range from the child. "Don't worry. We finished that monster." she said, sounding reassuring. "Are you hurt? We can help you." she added.
The child blinked at Ulanan. It looked at Cypress, expression unreadable but dark eyes wide, and then back to the Lalefel. "I can walk back to Vesper Bay on my own." The voice was smooth and androgynous, and did not evidence any pain or injury.
Dragonhide boots carried Cypress to the pair, her sharp, bright eyes taking in the little girl whose appearance was all too coincidental for the roegadyn that resolutely didn't believe in such things; Althyk never arranged for such without a purpouse. She smelt nothing on the wind, but the recently possessed rarely showed such signs right away. Her voice was cold even as it cracked, "But I saw your limp. You're too hurt to walk all those miles."
Ulanan frowned, dropping her head slightly. Her grip on the wand tightened. "Were you in that ship? Was anyone with you? We can look for them, make sure they are safe."
"There aren't any survivors." The Elezen said. The the child looked up at Cypress. "I am fine. You're frightening. Let me walk alone. If I'm wrong, you'll find me on the beach on your way back, won't you?"
Cypress reached where Ulanan now was, "I may be frightening, but I am far less so than what you just walked from. And I know some healing." A little lie to someone possessed would mean nothing. "Let me look at that leg." Her strong, proud facial features brokered no kindness in them though.
Ulanan said nothing else. She watched up to Cypress, and then back to the kid.
"Absolutely not. The shipwreck did not claim my pride." The child's chin lifted. "You will cease molesting me immediately."
"How did this happen?" the lalafell asked, gesturing with her head to the ship. "Was it that voidsent we fought?"
"Perhaps. I do not remember. Goodbye." The Elezen turned away, chain of the earring clattering, and began to limp in the direction of Vesper Bay.
As the girl turned to leave them, Cypress took a long step towards her and made a grab for her thin wrist.
The child made a sound of both dismay and pain as Cypress' claws closed around one bony wrist.
Ulanan threw her hands into the air. "Please!" she exclaimed to the Roegadyn. "Don't be that harsh! She might just be a kid and not a voidsent!"
If anything Cypress's grip tightened, "There is no such thing as coincidence."
The child didn't complain in words, groaning and making a token show of pulling away. A look of concern was cast towards Ulanan.
"I'm not going to question your world view." she commented. "But I question your methods. Let her go. If you are so worried about that, just follow her."
"If she is not possessed, then she'll have no worry in sitting down for an exam," Cypress yanked the child towards her, gentleness not present in her blood. "I'm amazed that after everything you've seen, you're willing to accept that a child involved in a voidsent induced shipwreck, witness to a violent altercation, simply walks away without so much tear in her eye or panic in her voice? She instantly showed more fear of me than any of those things."
"Elezen are proud like that. I'm just careful because I don't like the idea of burning people who might NOT be voidsent." she grumped in reply.
"Or who might be a voidsent AND a living child!" The Elezen spun on Cypress as the woman pulled. One thin arm reaching up, the child's fingers pointed towards Cypress' face and dark lines, like black icicles, shot directly for the Roegadyn's eyes.
Cypress was surprised, her bright copper eyes widening at the black daggers that came at them. And in that same moment her mind whispered, 'I told you so' to the parasite. And then there was simply darkness. And pain as her throat involuntarily let out at crackling roar.
The last dregs of her aether ripped through her, a wildfire that spread to everything it touched. It grounded was well-grounded in her boots, but it most certainly scorched the dainty wrist that captured within Cypress's own red hand.
Ulanan gave a jump backwards, unable to stop the attack or even see it coming before the kid was done speaking. She retaliated, the aether from her body thundering through her to the wand, and from there through the air to hit the kid with an electrical blast.
A pained cry ripped out of the child when first fire and then lightning struck the small body. But the cries ceased too quickly, and then it growled at Ulanan. "You torture an innocent."
"Then let her go!" she replied with a bark, accompanying her words with another magical blast.
Cypress could feel the cool streaks of what she assumed to be blood running down her smooth cheeks. Her body's involuntary reaction over, she found the sensation strangely calming. Even as her stomach wanted nothing more than to retch and her head felt like someone had stuffed cotton into her ears. She still had her presence of mind and the girl's wrist in her hand. She reached with her other one through the darkness to grasp up the girls arm just north of where her anchored hand was, "Just kill it," She gasped at Ulanan.
"I'm not letting go! The child's screaming inside!" The child couldn't fight either of them. Ulanan's magic was burning away that pale skin, darkening it viciously. "You'll be murderers!"
Sparks formed around the lalafell's wand. They grew in size, becoming fire. It moved outwards, circling her increasingly rapidly. Her tongue clicked against the roof of her mouth, letting out a dismissive noise to the voidsent's words. She stayed still for an instant, and then rotated her arm forwards, her legs shifting with the violence of the movement. The fire raised up in a thin torrent and fell upon the kid in an arc.
The child watched the fire arcing downward, and at the last moment, the voidsent seemed to release. The kid struggled against Cypress and tried to escape the fire. Fearful eyes watched, wide, watering, so terrified there wasn't even a scream. As the fire struck the child, however, the scream came. A child's loud, tortuous scream, as she burned alive.
Large red hands clasped around the girl's arm, Cypress held fast even as her stomach churned slightly at the more genuine sounds of pain and suffering. Better to end it here and be cleansed by the fire.
Ulanan let out a broken breath, looking more angry than horrorized by what just happened. She averted her eyes from the kid.
After a time, the child's body slackened and collapsed into the surf. The earring broke off and fell away. The corpse smoked, and smolders. Water bubbled around it, sizzling audibly.
Cypress felt the faint weight tugging at her grip as the not unfamiliar smell of burnt flesh settled firmly into her nostrils. She let it go after a long moments, the feeling of life and a pulse no longer present within the wrist that she had accidentally sheltered from the same magical frying that the rest of the body had endured.
![[Image: 7gJtlcb.png]](http://i.imgur.com/7gJtlcb.png)
