ENDLESS JOURNEYS (O/A)

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Silhouette lay smoldering, twitching,
And wheezing in the shade of the boulder.

"You always were a b*****d Soul..." she croaked. She then moaned while shifting herself into a sitting position against the great rock.

"Two of those questions are going to require fairly complicated answers, so I will start with the most simple one. I was in the process of tainting the fox-kin child's heart with hatred and malice born from my own. But I was interrupted when the dragon-kin stopped me. Now there is but a seed of my influence in her heart, waiting to be fed by her negative emotions. Once it has bloomed, she will gain shadow powers second only to me and be consumed by her emotions until she is nothing more than my angry little puppet."  

[Nova Blancke]

Always were a b*****d?

Nova listened to her explanation. His own theory wasn't that far off.

"I suspected as much. How do we undo that Sil?" Nova asked as he went on one knee and looked her in the eyes. He didn't realize he said that part of her name.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

The ancients sickly yellow eyes cooled to their natural soft silver. She momentarilly looked away as she sighed with nostalgia.

"Sil...I haven't been called that since we were children. And you only called me that when things were dire. I'm actually pleased that some small part of you is still in that mortal body." she mused.

She looked over to Kerana, and then up to Nova.
"Concentrated light magic combined with healing magic directed at her heart will remove my influence from her. But be warned; if she holds onto her anger and frustration the seed will root itself into her heart and she will die along with it."

Alas, as quickly as sanity pierced her hatred, her mind was once again clouded by her desire for revenge. The sickly yellow glow returned to her eyes as she layed her gaze upon the person that drew her ire...Trinity.

"I hope you realize that whatever befalls the child, the fault lies with your treacherous heart, Trinity." mewled Silhouette.  

[Nova Blancke]

Nova noticed the change in her eyes as well as in her behavior. But what she said just captivated him. There were bits of damaged memories of his very first life but it could hardly be called a memory.

"Thank you." He responded with a nod. She knew him, or rather, she knew this so called 'Soul'. Who he suspected was his first and original life. He had to meditate on this. Sort it out, combine that information with the broken bits that he had. Her transition to her previous state of mind was accompanied by her changing eye color. Was she afflicted by something? Unable to retain her sanity for long?

The words directed at Trinity got him curious. Her treacherous heart?

"Explain yourself Sil." Maybe her name would calm her but he doubted it.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

She frowned at Nova and pointed at Trinity.

"I have nothing to explain." she growled "Ask her about what happened at the temple of Umbra after she gained her shadow powers. Shadow powers that I bestowed upon her!"  

[Nova Blancke]

"She attacked you. That is what you remember, correct?" Nova asked. She did say treacherous heart and that she gave her those powers. It wasn't hard to reach that conclusion.

He looked over at Trinity.

"Is this true?"  

[PixelMuse]

Trinity raised her brows as the revelation was made. “It’s true I went to the temple of Umbra to pray for answers. I was trying to find an understanding as to why I have these shadow abilities since it has been for told that I was to be the holy light that shatters the darkness. Instead of answers the gods sent a snarling beast. I had to defend myself and used Umbra’s glaive to run it through. I did my paladin’s blessing. Learning that the answers I seek was but a big joke to the gods.”

“As for her granting me shadow abilities, I can’t say for certain. I was unconscious at the time.“

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Nova Blancke

Rikki Tikki Travi

BeaMichelle

 

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Silhouette's teeth became serated as they gnashed while she snarled, "You lying wretch! I heard the prayers made to my mother, and I came to guide you. I came not as the monster you all see before you, but as the woman I was before I was attacked. I approached you as a potential friend and mentor only to be met by betrayal! It is because of you that I became this wraith!!!"

The darkest shadows that comprised her chest began to glow a sickly yellow and branched out in a veiny pattern from within as her anger increased. She tensed up and gasped as a pain radiated through her body from the mysterious source of the glow.

Even though the glow wasn't all that bright, Alec was nearly compelled to shield himself from the horrid yellow light. He looked over to Nova and Trinity for some sort of answer.  

[PixelMuse]

"I did not see a woman... I saw a beast that I had to defend myself against." she couldn't help but feel conflicted. She didn't want to place the creature in pain her eyes focused on the glow. Why was there a glow in the darkest of shadows? "The darker the shadows... the brighter the light." she muttered to herself and rubbed her neck where the choker once resided.

For the level of certainty she spoke of that day seemed very truthful. Yet Trinity herself couldn't deny how clear that day was to her. There was no doubt in her mind that, that was how things played out. She didn't have any answers about the conflicting truths. She looked to Nova.  

[Nova Blancke]

Nova listened to both of them but became increasingly concerned by the yellow glow. With his telekinesis he moved the boulder away, taking away her shade. He did not trust this.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Silhouette shouted, "No! Don't let the sunlight-!"

That was as far as she got before the sun's rays began to burn her exposed true body. The excruciating pain was feeding her rage, causing the yellow glow to become brighter as it rapidly worked it's way to the surface.

She rolled on the ground and tried to push the thing back into the shadows of her chest where it wouldn't make her consition worse.

Meanwhile, the shadows were steadily pulling back in patches at the wounds she had developed as a result of being burned by light. Her true body was flesh in parts, muscle in others, and bone at the remaining sections. It was almost like her body was a grotesque model for students of healing magic.

The creature clutched at her chest and rolled into the fetal position, all the while trying to keep the thing in her chest away from direct sunlight.

"Stop, please!" she plead "The pain. I'm losing myself!"  

[Nova Blancke]

Nova clicked with his tongue out of frustration. He did not know how to handle this. And not knowing drove him mad. But he did know that the sickly yellow light was bad for both.

The rock moved back in place casting shade on her.. A few lines of light confining her vanished.

"Damnit Sil! What the hell am I supposed to do with you?! Killing you feels wrong but letting you go seems even worse!"  

[BeaMichelle]

Keleth watched the exchange, growing more impatient by the moment. Then the creature showed it's true colors. That was her last straw.

"Well tgus is getting boring and gross. If you can't bring yourself to kill her, then I will."

The dragon-kin rose her hammer and swung it down toward the creature's skull.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Silhouette knew it was coming this time. She raised her right hand and halted the trajectory of the hammer like it was little more than a pillow.

"Kill me? Let me go?" she groaned. Her neck cracked and flaked pieces of flesh and bone as she turned to head so that they could all see what Trinity had done to her. Sporratic strings and clumps of long raven black hair hung like ghastly reminders of her former self. The area surrounding her right eye and temple was still covered in her skin, but the left side was little more than muscle and pulsating veins.
Her mouth and jaw were an amalgam of bone and rotten flesh that crossed her "lips."

She began to cackle maniacally. Slowly and quietly at first, but her voice soon boomed and echoed over the land.

"I cannot die, Nova. Not until Trinity has suffered as I have." she demanded as her tone and pitch became more erratic and unhinged. She was losing what little was left of her sanity.

"And as for letting me go...fool. You should have killed me when you had the chance."

She twisted and stood up, pushing the hammer back to Keleth. Where her heart should have been was a stone fused into a large vertical wound. It glowed the same disgusting juandice yellow as her eyes. When it pulsated, so did her irises.

The stone absorbed in the sunlight she was now purposely exposing herself to and began to emit a grinding, high pitched whistle. Silhouette's howl of pain was a cacophany of many voices that sounded terrified, agonized, and elated all at once.

Silhouette's hadow errupted upward and engulfed her within it's abysal darkness. A concussive wave burst forth and kicked up a dust cloud in all directions around her.

Alec had dived to protect Kerana, and he held her within his arms as they tumbled from the force of the creature's power. When they stopped her looked toward Sil...and then he had to crane his neck far upward.

His ears foldes back, and his throat suddenly went dry. All he could manage to whisper was, "By the Gods...what is she?

The shadows rapidly took the form of an eyeless terror that was adorned in barbed tentacles and led up to a gaping maw of teeth with an oozing black portal at it's core. It stood nearly as tall as the colleseum and ungulated rhytmically.

The caverns that Earth divers had dug became filled with her slithering, tree sized appendages and burst forth from the ground as far as the eye could witness.

The thing that was Silhouette lurched forward and unleashed a mewling screech at the Trinity and the others that shook the ground and buildings.

PixelMuse

Nova Blancke

BeaMichelle

 

[BeaMichelle]

Keleth used the handle side of her hammer to slow her to a halt. She grit her teeth and covered her eyes from the blast of sand. She looked up and saw the horror that she had injured so easily not even fifteen minutes prior. Her jaw dropped and her eyes went wide with fear. It was a strange sensation to her, since the dragon-kin are nigh fearless as a whole.

But it didn't last long. A crazed grin warped the corners of her mouth and she muttered, "I'm gonna need a bigger hammer"