OOM: All Skate Skellig Dream Magic Weirdness? -Part Two

[brave_kreyu]

Kreyu intended to dance in the sky with Skellig the very next day, but events have conspired to prevent that from occurring. A raid on the village by former soldiers meant many wounded to heal and much damage to fix. Akatan's sister, Neferet, has a definite crush, an infatuation, with Skellig. She hasn't done anything but look and exchange some friendly words, but it still makes her brother FURIOUS.

For all that Euripedes was from a different time and place, a line he had Medea speak in the play of the same name still rings true: "I would rather stand three times in the line of battle than once bear a child." Even with Kreyu's magic, with Taweret's skill, childbirth is incredibly dangerous. There are reasons why Taweret's goddess image of She Who Is Great has elements of the hippo, the lion, and the crocodile, a fearsome appearance to drive off the many threats facing a woman giving birth. The second birth in a week began this morning and was still going on when the sun began to set. Not a good sign.

Skellig, trying to burn off nervous energy while Kreyu was working, happened across a few of the village men drinking. They said things about Kreyu they should not have said. That he was FEEDING on Kreyu, drinking her blood. There...may have been a fight. At least they don't think he's a demon anymore, you can't give a demon a black eye in a brawl with your fists!

It is truly night now, and Skellig can hear Kreyu's tired footsteps on the road...

(OOC: Warning for explicit adult content starting around tag 194.)

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[brave_kreyu]

He did wake everyone, but the baby's cry, Heqet's confused question as to what's going on, Taweret's desperate prayer to She Who Is Great as she throws the bar across the door, are all background noise in the face of Kreyu's distress.

There is one small mercy, he won't have to CUT the arrow out, this time. The head of the wicked, barbed, thing came all the way through - he can use the head to pull the rest of it from her body.

For a moment, her eyes focus on him, color shifting between violet and brown, her hands scrabbling at the beads around her throat. "Take it," she manages to gasp out, the sound too weak for lesser ears to hear. He knows there's power in the necklace, karma he can use if he needs it.

[27_53]

"Kreyu, listen to me."

His voice is low, firm and steady. A rock to grasp hold of, amidst the thundering waves of an angry (he is so very angry beneath the surface) violent ocean storm. He moves his fingertips to curl around the necklace, merely needing to touch it to allow the Karma stored there to surge into his system.

The Light in him briefly FLARES as the strange, unfamiliar (but yet familiar all at once) Karma clashes, two different currents of energy sparking and misfiring until they realize they are both on the same side.

"Do not let go of me. Even if you go under, do not let go of me."

His voice sounds old, powerful. Powerful in ways that even he will struggle to understand later, when he revisits this moment in his mind (which he will do countless times in the coming moments, hours, days) and heart.

Pressing his forehead closer to hers, curling his hand around the shaft of the arrow lodged in her chest (he ignores the barbs that prick his hand) he keeps his gaze steady - the fear gone from his eyes, replaced with something stronger (power, Karma, Light) that has pushed the emotion completely from his body.

"I will not let you drown."

[brave_kreyu]

She feels like she's drowning, water in her lungs. (Blood is thicker than water, a red sea inside of her.)

With the last of her strength, she grabs hold of one of his arms, reaches out with her soul toward his light.

She knows what dying feels like, she's done it before, although not in this frail shape, so very small. Something cold and dark wants to swallow her up and she's so TIRED, but she hangs on to him.

The necklace shatters under his hand as it gives up the last of its strength.

[27_53]

Light surges throughout his system rapidly as the clay beads shatter and crumble beneath his touch, and he knows that he has to hurry because she is drowning on dry land and he has to get this arrow out--

Without hesitation, he swiftly pulls the arrow free from her body, the bloody shaft clattering to the tabletop as he drops it, frothy blood welling quickly to the surface of her wound, spreading from both sides of her body front and back. He reaches over his shoulder, grasping at what appears to be thin air - searing a ward? Signaling? No - a fistful of feathers yanked quickly into his grasp, which he plasters over the wound on the frontside of her. Another fistful gets placed behind her as he lifts her slightly into his grasp off the table.

(His feet are only just barely touching the ground, but there is likely no one in the room that will notice.)

Visions and echoes are ricocheting throughout his focus as he reaches, eyes closed tight, seeking to repair the damage within her body. With the extra Karma, he is able to knit faster (it still isn't fast enough, she's slipping further from him) and repair internal wounds with greater efficiency (not fast enough, you are losing her she is going to drown) and then something sparks in his brain.

"Give."

It is a command (one he did not know he could give, one he will likely never be able to give again) which shall not be disobeyed. His own lungs quickly grow heavy, filling with blood (her blood) as the tears in her body mend and seal beneath his reach, his touch.

He doesn't let go of her as he turns and coughs, choking, before he spits and retches blood (so much blood, more than should be possible) into a bucket on the floor beside the table. His vision is blurred, and he's still coughing, his own lungs gasping for oxygen, but he needs to feel her breathe beneath his hands, his mind willing her chest to expand and rise with every ounce of Light he can possibly spare pouring into her soul.

Another fistful of feathers is torn free from his wing and he threads them quickly into her hair, eyes glancing desperately at her face. Her throat, her chest, her heartbeat (he can still hear her heartbeat, it is fainter than it has ever been but it is still here) pulsing through the vein in her neck. He reaches further--

breathe, my dragon, my mate. breathe, kreyu.
i will not let you drown here on this day.
this is not the way this ends for you. breathe, please. breathe!

Skellig has walked with Death many times.
But Kreyu will not join Them. Not today.
Not so long as he has breath in his lungs.

(Bloodied as they are.)

[brave_kreyu]

Even dying, on the very edge of death, her blood is full of power. The blood of a goddess in his lungs, a goddess who wants to heal him. It heals what it touches, spreads out in little waves to his internal organs as the power is picked up by his OWN blood circulating through his lungs. Even as he retches it up into a bucket, it is healing what it touches as it passes out of his body.

An echo of her words not to waste it, if she's going to bleed anyway she'd rather it do him some good.

She breathes, a wretched, gasping sound, her chest rising under his hands. She's not conscious, but her heartbeat is strengthening. The next breath is a less dreadful sound, the third better still.

Death's grip slackens, then releases. There is other prey to be hunted tonight.

The arrow he pulled from her flesh sits on the table, mocking him. A whisper in his mind. 'He struck at her to get to YOU, Skellig. To make you hurt, to make you suffer.'

[27_53]

The whisper is acknowledged, but he doesn't act on it just yet. His main focus is still her, with her chest rising and falling under his hands - he's still working on steadying her muscles, knitting together torn fragments, repairing the more detailed damage he 'missed' on the first pass.

The taste of her blood is in his mouth as he works, and he can feel it working throughout his body - a most unfamiliar feeling, but not one that is unpleasant.

As her gasping breaths steady into something that is a greater semblance of 'normal' - she's still not perfect, and she won't be for some time - Skellig glances up at Taweret.

His voice is raspy and raw when he speaks to her - as if he has been screaming. "I would put her in the bed, if you would allow it?" She is still covered in blood, patches of his feathers stuck to her skin where wounds have been erased.

[brave_kreyu]

"Of course, child," she says, voice quiet. "You are both welcome to whatever lies within these walls for as long as you need."

She looks at the feathers. "The owl means death, mourning, in these lands, but you have beaten death back instead." There is a touch of awe and wonder in her voice.

[27_53]

Carefully - oh so very carefully, this is so much different from every other time he has carried her, but it is effortless as he lifts her into his arms - he moves her into his grasp, transferring her from the table to Taweret's bed. There will need to be washing done, but at least Kreyu is no longer actively bleeding.

"There is no beating Death," Skellig says quietly, bowing his head as he strokes a hand over Kreyu's face. "But today was not to be her walk with Them."

(He nearly says our walk, because if Kreyu had perished...he would have likely gone after her, losing himself in the process.)

He shakes his head to clear his vision and looks back up at Taweret again, then to the bucket near the table. "Do not...do not toss that aside. She may need it, when I return. I would ask of you...please. Watch over her."

[brave_kreyu]

Taweret's gaze is firm, solemn. "I will watch over your heart as if it were my own."

Her eyes flicker to the goddess image. "I know what you would do. Would you be HER hands tonight, in my stead? There are older laws than the laws of kings when She must protect those under her care from Men."

[27_53]

Despite his wings not being visible in this space, Taweret will feel a faint rush of air as he shakes them out against his back, perhaps even hear the rustle of feathers as an echo in her mind.

"I would consider it my sworn duty," he says, solemnly.

[brave_kreyu]

"Never before have I had to give a life my hands brought forth to HER jaws. I would not falter in my duty, but you are better able to see the matter ended quickly tonight than these old bones."

And it will hurt Skellig less, though she won't SAY that.

[27_53]

She doesn't have to say it. Skellig reaches once more and plucks a single (clean) feather from 'the air' behind him and offers it to Taweret.

"I give you this. If you fear she is slipping beyond once again," he shoots a sideways glance at Kreyu, who should not (and will not) be going anywhere. "Just think of me. I will return to help at once."

[brave_kreyu]

Taweret nods, takes the feather with all the care afforded to something holy and precious. "I will."

'It's all your fault, he attacked her because of you,' the arrow whispers.

'He nearly stole heaven from you tonight, condemned you to a hell without her,' Kreyu's blood speaks on his hands.

'He needs to SUFFER for what he's done," the fire crackles.

[27_53]

With that, and a final (for now) press of his lips to Kreyu's bloodied cheek, he rises from a knee and moves to the door.

He stops only to glare at the arrow that whispers at him from the puddle of blood (her blood, her precious blood) it rests in on the table.

"He will pay," he speaks, voice low.

Who exactly he is talking to - to Kreyu? to Taweret? to the voices? - is unclear, but it doesn't matter. He has business to attend to. He leaves the arrow on the table and takes his leave.

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan has been waiting for him, with a hunter's patience. He KNOWS he killed the witch, nothing survives a shot like that for long! But he wants the demon too. Skellig is barely out of the door when another arrow comes for him.

But Skellig knows the sound of them, now, and Akatan has lost the element of surprise. And Skellig is so very, very, angry. Akatan is perched on top of the wall that rings the town, a position that gives him an easy sight line to Taweret's dwelling.

'Blasphemer' the earth rumbles.

'He wanted your mate, coveted her. Wanted her to bed him, to bear his children, to be his prized wife' the well gossips, 'but she wouldn't have him after the night she kissed him.'

'Wise goddess, sensed the poison in him, even if she didn't know its name' the wind whispers in his ear.

[27_53]

Skellig easily avoids the arrow, moving with an unnatural grace out of its deadly pathway. (All it has done has given him an easier 'sightline' to his target, perched atop the wall.) The thunk it makes as its barbed head buries itself deep into the mud wall of Taweret's home is loud, even amid the echoes, the voices in his head.

"He is not worthy," he mutters, anger building in his tone as he slips sideways into shadow, out of Akatan's line of direct sight, out of the line of fire. "She would not bear his children, she is my mate."


Akatan wishes for the demon.
The demon he will get.

Skellig simply appears atop the wall with a rush of air that is strong enough to force Akatan back, knock any arrow he may have had nocked from the string of that bow.

He will seek his vengeance.

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan was not expecting him to appear like that, to knock the arrow off the string. He swings the wooden bow like a staff, trying to land a blow on the demon. "Die, damn you! I've already killed the witch, you should be gone!"

[27_53]

The damn you stings his senses and he would normally react outwardly, a dull ache behind his eyes (just another headache, take down some brown and some more of those pills and push it off) but there is so much of his Light and her Karma still flooding his senses, her blood and power coursing through his veins - that it simply rolls off without any reaction.

(He could get used to this, this much POWER.)

"I will not go until I am through with you."

Skellig stalks forward and grabs the bow, yanking it from Akatan's grasp and tossing it aside. He is tempted to simply shift his hand, allow his talons to break free and slice through flesh right here, have this asshole bleed to death atop the wall.

But that would leave too much evidence.

"And I want to go fly."

Firm hands grab Akatan by the bicep and shoulder; he spins him to face away so he can't strike back, then throws them both off the wall, plummeting towards the ground below.

(It isn't far, but falling is never fun.)

At the last instant, Skellig beats his wings, kicking up a cloud of dust and sand before he heads towards the river.

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan struggles in his grip, his terror loud as they approach the ground.

The struggle slows as Skellig gets higher off the ground, as Akatan realizes just what would happen if he fell from this height.

[27_53]

Skellig does not waste time in getting them to a height at which Akatan would most certainly perish from, if he were to let go of him.

It is when they near the banks of the river, moonlight shimmering off the surface, that Skellig does just that. There might be a bit of a shove involved, to 'assist' gravity. It is not fully over the river, however, that Akatan falls - because owls do not swim.



Reluctantly (but only because he wishes to cause more suffering before he snuffs out this thread) Skellig dives soundlessly after Akatan, breaking the fall (this time with talons dug into his shoulders) and landing atop him, Akatan meeting the earth firmly, face down.

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan screams when Skellig's talons dig into his shoulder, draw his blood. Something in his nose breaks, cartilage or bone when his face meets the earth.

The blood smell causes the crocodiles to stir slightly. No predator is going to turn down a free meal, and there are a LOT of mouths down here.

[27_53]

With a knee still pressed firmly into Akatan's spine, Skellig reaches up and quickly unties the amulet from around his neck, tucking it into a fold of his kilt.

And then he fully flares his wings, stirring the earth around them up a bit before he growls and uses one hand to 'flip' his prey face up on the earth.

(Even the crocodiles hesitate, briefly, at the sense of THIS predator.)

He is a fearsome sight, like this. So few have seen this anger, this rage, this fire in his eyes.

[brave_kreyu]

Akatan's eyes widen at the sight of his wings. The owl is a symbol of death, of mourning, and with that fire in his eyes, he's utterly terrifying.

He tries to scrabble backwards, away, does what so many do when they are out of other options. He BEGS. "Please, have mercy. Please."

[27_53]

"Have mercy?!"

He shouts, a flock of nearby nesting birds startled and screeching as they leave their roost in the grass and seek safer ground. His growl is quickly broken by a laugh, and Skellig is shaking his head watching as Akatan tries to crawl away, begging before him.

"Have mercy on you, the one who tried to strike down my mate--" He hauls back and spits on Akatan's retreating form, stalking after him. "You tried and failed, by the way...you would ask that the owl have mercy on you?"

[brave_kreyu]

"Please. I'll give you anything you want, anything!" He's even more desperate now.

Yesterday, Akatan would have sneered at Skellig confirming what everyone already knew. That he was bedding the witch, had taken her for his own. But this is not yesterday.