|
Post by Admin on Feb 6, 2015 9:39:45 GMT
She had run to flee. And though she had been prepared in her mind for either a knife in her back, or a strong hand snaking out to grab her, she hadn't been prepared for what he had done. A small scream, not of pain, but of surprise, fell from her lips as she went down with the fine line wrapped around her booted ankles.
She wasn't even aware her growl had deepened as she rolled to her back and sat up to reach down to begin untangling the offensive web. "Why did you do that?" She growled between clenched teeth. If he heard her he wouldn't be sure if she had queried herself or him in the words.
She didn't look up as panic filled every pore of her body. Her mind was only thinking of escape as her fingers, tired of trying to unwind her legs, simply gripped the wire and snapped it free. Just as she did, the thought of her actions dawned on her.
She looked up to see where he was and if he had seen her action. She wanted to run, head for the forest, disappear into the foliage and brush and trees and hide from him. But also, as she saw his form looming closer, she wanted to pounce on him, taste him, bite into him and feed with a hunger that scared her and would be plain on her face if he could see it by moonlight. The fear wasn't of him, though he may not realize that... it was of what she wanted to do to him.
As he got closer to her form still seated on the pine needles, leaves and debris of the wooded carpet she was on, she would begin to slide backwards on hands and backside as she tried to put distance between them once more.
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 6, 2015 10:28:41 GMT
A flicker of pride ripped through Jashin as his surujin snared her legs and brought her crashing to the ground. While there had been perhaps less damaging ways to ensnare his prey, most of them involved the use of hai'zjin and was therefore prohibited by Conclave law. She had offered him no direct resistance, used no forms of preternatural power. The woman had been just that: a female attempting escape from his intended questions. Why, he wasn't certain, but it no longer mattered. Her game of rabbit-and-fox was over before it had truly begun, and all that was left was for the Hunter to take her into custody. In truth, Jashin had little idea what he would do with her beyond restraining her. Perhaps the innkeeper, Mira, would have a secure place in the cellar to house her until he could get word back to Conclave. Straightening, he moved to deal with her as she squirmed and grumbled and wrestled with the surujin. The metal cord woven around her calves glittered in the moonlight as she writhed against its grip, fingers fumbling for freedom. It was futile, he knew, as the strands were strong enough to resist brute force and flexible enough to bend with her movements. Whether she desired to admit it or not, he had her.
Until she growled and snapped the surujin line with a swift wrench of her fingers.
"Va stu...?" he blinked.
His fali'sara nearly leapt into his hands as he dropped into a guarded position, lead foot sliding forward for balance as the polished blade came to rest just off his shoulder. No normal human would have been able to simply break a surujin as cleanly as she had, certainly not without slicing flesh open to the bone. Yet he could scent no blood from her, see no wound of any kind. By the flicker of bewilderment, he was not entirely certain she had expected such results either. Yet when she gazed at him, he saw that dark urge peer out at him from those silvery eyes. And then he realized where he had seen such a look before, and he wanted to howl with frustration for his own naiveté. The pale skin, the preternatural grace, the seething dark hunger lurking on just the other side of her vaunted innocence. Each feature screamed at him until he was forced to reach one undeniable conclusion.
"Chiera."
The word was venom on his lips, but he could also hear a thread of fear whisper through the utterance. It had been years since Ero and the others had liberated him from the grips of Carmine and her coterie, since the blood bond had been broken and he had ridden the madness wrought by it to his freedom of it. Conclave had been so very careful never to place him near another vampire, supervised or otherwise, for fear that his old life might fall upon him once more. Yet for all their care, Jashin had been haunted by nightmares and guilt to such a degree that only his brother had been able to understand. Only Arador had been able to calm him, soothe him hack to sleep on those fitful nights when shadows clung to him and tore at his flesh, feasted on his blood and laughed at his pain. For all the care Conclave had shown, the divarian found himself staring down his nightmares given new life and there was nothing to do but face it.
Jashin was so locked in his horror and hatred for what she was that he did not notice his control slip away. Amber bled across the icy field of his irises once more, and his features shifted back to their natural state. Such a thought would have amused him, since Jashin knew full well that the twisted, nigh-aelfan form he wore was so unnatural as to be utterly laughable. The divarian no longer knew what his true self was any longer, for both time and the chiera had stripped that from him as well. Carmine had forced him to take this form to suit her fancy and her lust for control of him. The People were supposed to be immune to such Commands, and yet here he stood as a testament to the fallacy of that notion. He was a lie wrapped in a shadow of a memory and sealed in amusement, a discarded plaything. Yet Conclave had given him a purpose, and purpose gave the Hunter power.
He took a half-step toward her, blade poised to strike. Jashin's voice was a harsh snarl. "Where are they?"
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 6, 2015 18:37:32 GMT
“Va stu…”
She shook her head back and forth. She didn’t have any idea what he was saying or asking. Then he spoke again. And this time she felt his confusion turn to anger.
No, more than anger… rage.
“Chiera!”
Even as he said the word, it seemed foreign to her. Then she remembered. It was ‘vampire’ in some language she only knew from reference during the lessons and Conclave meetings she had attended to with Devon. As she rolled the word over in her mind, her voice responded. Though if she were asked later, she would have sworn it was merely in her mind. “Yes…” She nodded her head as swiftly up and down as her skin and bones would allow. Perhaps if he knew what she was, she would be safe. He would run like they all did… right?
But when she watched him shift before her, something in her made her ‘fight or flight’ somehow take pause. “What ARE you?” she asked. While most would probably have asked him in a way that would show fear or even pure revulsion, her words lilted slightly… almost in curiosity and awe as if seeing something strange and trying to decide if it was beautiful or not.
Then just as swiftly as her own fear had turned to intrigue, his confusion had changed from confusion to rage. As he asked where the others were, she bit her lip. Her jaw clenched and her own curiosity was once more forgotten. “There are no others. I am the last.” She had assumed he meant her clan. It didn’t dawn on her he would possibly be asking about others of her kind. Since she didn’t associate with any, she wouldn’t know their whereabouts anyway, but it was mute. It hadn’t crossed her mind.
She scooted back a bit further, and a lot faster, with the blade before her, unsheathed and shining in the moonlight. He was a hunter… a predator. And she was now the prey.
“I am the last!” She spat it at him as if it had been all his fault and he should have known. She moved then in a single graceful, nearly feline motion. Rolling to her right hip, she crossed her left leg over and planted her foot on the ground. Pushing off with hand and foot, she completed the roll as she came to her feet and took off at a full run. She hadn’t fed in a day and a half, and she was still young as far as the standard went, so she wasn’t at full speed. But no mortal would be able to keep up and that was all she wanted.
She sprinted into the trees and let the cover of darkness wrap around her black clad form to hide her from prying eyes as well. She ran north, towards her home. Towards her sanctuary. All she knew was that while his steel scared her cold, his form had made her hot. Even as she thought of it, heat rose unbidden to her cheeks. Had she fed, she may have even colored.
At the thought of feeding, and the fear and flight, she felt her beast stir within her… this wasn’t good. Tonight just wasn’t her night.
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 7, 2015 7:35:34 GMT
Jashin almost laughed when her query of "Who are you?" nearly echoed his own. It wasn't as if he expected her to understand his native tongue, took some measure of comfort in the knowledge that he could still speak like one of the People even though his visage was vastly different. They watched each other for an eternal moment, her face an open display of emotions that flickered from fear to indignation and every manner of sensation in between. The darkness that burned in the veiled depths of her eyes did not fade no matter her face, however, and that kept his hackles and his guard up. The ache in his jaw was strong now, and the tingle that surged along his skin neared a very real pain. The Hunter's focus on the chiera woman kept the worst of it at bay, did not let the agony build to the point of distraction. When he saw her give an almost imperceptible nod when he named her for what she was, any doubt that lingered was burned away under the flare of raw rage that welled up within him. It was not hatred, for he had not known her before tonight. No, this was something far less logical. It was what she was that sickened him, clawed at his mind and tore at his spirit.
The thought blistered in his heart, for a vague shadow of a memory rose to the surface and broke upon realization. Jashin remembered feeling this same hatred so many lost years ago, when Maltin Selimnar and his favored childer, Carmine, had bought him from the slavers and turned him into a pet. A toy, a plaything, and a challenge; that was what he had been to Carmine, nothing more. He recalled how the blonde, frail-looking chiera leaned close to the bars and whispered at him in a language he did not understand. It was then that he felt as he did now and lunged, fingers--no, not fingers, claws--lancing through the steel shafts to rend her flesh. The divarian had known then, in some instinctual way, that her death would make the world a hair more right again. Somehow he had known then that the chiera were a disease spattered across the Realms, and his body had acted. Carmine had worn a puckered scar along her jawline borne of that soul-deep disdain to her dying day, a mark that had rewarded him with untold seasons of suffering and humiliation. A mark that led to a broken thing on a stone floor when Ero and the other Hunters had come, a shell whose will had nearly been snuffed out.
"There are no others; I am the last!" she spat at him. Jashin glared all the more hotly. "I am the last!"
Had all those people been taken by chiera, used as fodder or worse? The thought clung to him, made him want to sick up: thirty-seven lives all snuffed out or perverted by vampires. This woman, this thing, was not listed amongst the description of those missing. His only conclusion was that she was either one of the perpetrators or perhaps one not included in his mission. Conclave had suspected there were many more abducted, those without family or friend to report them, but surely someone with her wealth and beauty should have been noticed. If she was chiera, she would not have been alone. Not out in the wild places, at least. He had learned well from his time amongst the Selimnar, at least enough to know how the chiera worked. Only the very old ones lived alone or in small groups, and she seemed too insecure to be an ancient. This woman had to know where others might be, might lead him to where they lay. And through them he would come to others still, on and on until he found those taken and completed his mission.
Jashin blinked as she twisted and rolled herself to her feet, his body reacting almost entirely on its own to keep his blade ready. He found himself surprised again as she turned and fled. She had exposed herself to him, yet the chiera chose to retreat rather than engage him to protect her secret. Such a thing had never been done to his ken; such an action left the whole of the chieran race exposed. Jashin had heard Carmine admonished countless times by Maltin on the dangers of revealing themselves to the other races--of defying the Emperor's Legacy, whatever that had been--and the punishments for such crimes. Why would she evade the threat of death by his blade just to race headlong into an end from the hands of her own kind? He was finding more questions than answers, and none of them good.
That she had shown herself to be more than mortal meant the Hunt had changed, and a hair more in his favor. The whole of his training was now at his disposal, including those of magick. Drawing deep of his hai'zjin and relaxing his body, Jashin began to move in circular, fluid motions. The air about him began to churn and tug at his clothes while the magick built in him until his bones felt brittle and cold. Focusing on the direction she had fled, he released his hai'zjin and snapped forward with a rush of wind and a loud crack. The Hunter lifted his boots and allowed the magick to carry him through the air like a leaf on a zephyr, blade trailing and eyes searching. It did not take him long to spot her in a blur of midnight and porcelain, racing across the landscape with speed that would make a thoroughbred envious. As the lofting wind faded and he began his descent, hai'zjin flooded his body once more as he shifted slightly. Jashin sneered as his aim proved true, bringing him down on her like a falcon on a field mouse. The magick sang into his blade as he heaved it earthward in a shining arc meant to shear her legs out from under her.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 7, 2015 8:22:18 GMT
She ran...
Weaving and bobbing through the trees hoping to lose her pursuer, yet always edging ever closer to the house.
She had no choice. It was too late in the night to lead him in a pursuit he would surely tire of before sunrise. Sunrise was soon about to burst upon them. Less than two hours, she guessed from the instinctual warning her body had begun to hum through her blood.
She didn't look back. She doubted he would keep up. And if she moved swift enough, tacked back and forth enough, perhaps she could even hide her trail. She wished now she had fed before going to the tavern. At least then she could have taken flight, even if just a short distance. But she didn't dare try now. She was too tired, too weak.
So she ran.
Suddenly the hairs on the back of her bare neck began to prickle. She glanced back just in time to see him descend upon her as if leaping down from a tree. That must have been how he followed her so easily He had remained in the trees and followed a more direct route. There was no other explanation.
As he came down, blade poised to end her headlong dash, she tucked and rolled with all the intentions of carrying it through to land back on her feet and take off once more. But it didn't happen that way.
As she rolled, her head shifted to try and catch a glimpse of him and judge where he was. But in shifting her head, her whole body altered its course and her controlled maneuver turned into a clumsy tumble that landed her just out of blade's reach, but slammed her hard against a large tree trunk. She closed her eyes a moment as the tree slammed into her with enough force to make her grunt in pain. She had connected with her back, thank the gods who listened, but it hurt none the less. As she opened her eyes a split secont later, she saw she was only a few feet away from her predatory hunter. Shaking her head in confusion, she looked at him and tried to keep his attention with her words as she slowly moved her long, lean body to a position she could possibly roll to her feet and free from once more.
Alexa managed to sit up and lean against the tree as she caught his face once more. The look there made her hand rise almost of its own accord. His eyes held more than simple resentment or even contempt. There was a look there of profound loss and rage. He looked at her with the kind of hatred she had seen in other mortals' eyes when they came to hunt her clan after someone or other had been careless and slain a family for pure joy only to leave one person alive meerely to torment with the memory of their deed. Who had hunted his family? Why was the contempt aimed at her? Did he not know who had done it? Perhaps he merely hated all her kind.
As her rising hand pierced her own peripheral vision, she bit her lip once more and clenched her fingers as she lowered them again. Why had she wanted to touch him, feel his pain, ease his anger? Her heightened empathy left her more confused than clear as to his purpose. His emotions ran such a gambit through her, she doubted even he would know what to call what he was feeling at this moment.
"Just let me go. Whatever it is you think I did, I can assure you I didn't." She tried once more to begin sliding to a better escape vantage as she spoke.
So close to home... yet so far...
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 7, 2015 9:49:52 GMT
Jashin's blade keened its deathtoll as it cut a half-moon path through the air at the exact moment his boots touched the earth once more. Yet his prey twisted aside at the crucial moment, and both he and his fali'sara met with empty air. The force of his descent sent loam and rock pluming into the air around him, and he used both cover and momentum to roll clear of whatever counterattack the chiera could bring to bear. As he had been taught, he twisted one movement into the next and carried the hai'zjin pulsing through his body forward into his next attack. The divarian's ears registered her collide with a nearby tree, evoking a grunt of protest from between clenched teeth, and he acted. The loose stones and dirt from his landing leapt at her, pelting her in a hailstorm of debris. It lasted only for a moment and was all but harmless, but it allowed the Hunter to set his guard and better assess the situation.
The chiera was nigh-prone on the forest floor, one hand stretched out to him almost as if she believed she could ward off his fali'sara. It was clear that she was afraid of him, and that sat well with the divarian. Jashin found that his own trepidation at facing one of her kind once more was beginning to melt away, the frost of old memories burning off under the flame of his conviction. As the seconds passed, it became more and more clear that his purpose--his very existence--was to wipe clean the vampire scourge. Disdain for what she was blistered in his amber gaze, and he could feel his lips peeling away from a silent snarl. A part of him cried out against the injustice of slaying a woman who had done him no harm and was perhaps innocent, but the bloodlust thundering in his blade-like ears drowned it out. Jashin had taken an oath to Conclave to put to rest any and all creatures of Shadow he might find, and this chiera was certainly no exception. Right or wrong, he would do what was needed to glean the whereabouts of the missing Aisani and return them safely to their families. He knew all too well what such a wound that loss could leave, and Jashin was not about to let others suffer as he had.
Va stu ita'est itabi'ati'ges, Jashin? The words of his matron came to him as he saw a glimmer of something softer in her gaze: compassion. It was there and gone amidst the flurry of detritus, but there had been no mistaking it. It was a sensation he had not experienced since his abduction from Divaria, not to the degree that hung in that strange moment. Even his anjir, Marsavis Ero, had not looked at him in that way. That one glance, so full of confusion and empathy, gnawed at him before the bloodlust returned. Yet and still, the words of his matron echoed in his ears once more. What is it that has taken your harmony, Jashin?
"Just let me go," the chiera pleaded, lowering her hand and scooting away from him. "Whatever it is you think I did, I can assure you I didn't."
"I cannot." Jashin's voice was granite. "You will tell me where they are, or take me to one who can, but you will surrender yourself to Conclave authority or be destroyed. My duty is clear."
His fali'sara poised before him in one hand, the Hunter tugged at the front of his ibliha with the other to cover his nose and mouth so that only his eyes could clearly be seen. He was Jemar'ai, a Hunter of Shadow, and he was a bringer of death to the vampire scourge. Death had no face, nor did he.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 7, 2015 10:30:11 GMT
She managed to slowly rise to her feet, back still nearly clinging to the tree behind her. She felt the bark bite into bare flesh and winced. Her shirt was torn. Absently, her right hand reached back up behind her to feel the exposed skin. When she brought her hand down there was a touch of crimson on it. She had managed to scrape herself raw and was bleeding slightly.
For just a moment she looked down at her hand in almost childlike fascination. Since her turning, blood had come to mean something entirely new to her. It meant life, but it also meant death. And to her, it meant a beast she couldn't tame and a frenzy she didn't want to experience. Suddenly she was hastily scrubbing the palm of her hand up and down the thigh of her breeches as if to forever remove the offending color from her sight. She whispered hastily under her breath as she did it. "No, doesn't matter... not now... can't do it now..."
She looked up at him, sorry and pain in her eyes. Though if it was her sorrow and pain or his, at this point she couldn't tell. His emotions, so blatently being poured out of every fiber of his being, were beginning to ebb and flow over her not like a warm river when she is trying to heal someone, but like a tidalwave threatening to drown them both in their rivaly for dominance. "I don't know who you are looking for. My clan is dead." The words caught in her throat. It had been so long, yet in that second she spoke the words, it flooded back in like yesterday and she could almost taste the fire's ash on her tongue.
"I don't know who you are seeking. And I don't know why I need to die at your hands because of the Conclave. The Conclave is in ruin. There has been chaos since the murder of the Prince and if you are here to blame me then met your justice. As lone survivor, there is no one to vouchsafe my innocence." She didn't understand that it was missing mortals he sought. Like so many nights scattered across the recent decades, she thought him someone come from another Clan to finish her off thinking it was her fault or doing that the Prince was dead and the rivalry for his throne has tossed the entire Masquerade into a frenzy.
Alexa shook her head as she balled up her now raw fist and started to step sideways. She felt her eyes bgin to glisten at the thought of her lonliness. Why was he here? Was it to torment her and be a constant reminder of her loss? Or was he here to simply kill her, no jury, no trial, no justice... just because the fractured Conclave didn't want her around anymore?
She took another step to the side hoping to slip his lease once more.
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 7, 2015 11:36:10 GMT
Jashin quirked a brow at her short, but impassioned, speech. Chaos amongst the chiera? A sovereign elder had been slain? What had she survived? Yet more questions, more confusion. He watched her cautiously as she reached behind herself, but the coppery tang of blood floated to him on the breeze and he relaxed a fraction. The chiera was wounded, and from something as elementary as striking a tree. While true she had slammed into the trunk with enough force to break a mortal back and still stood, the fact that she had not simply been able to shrug off the blow as he had seen so many do made him realize she was young. Not in the way of age, no, but in experience as a vampire. It was also true that Jashin had no deep knowledge of chieran aging, and could only infer from his time as Carmine's favored pet. Her injury gave him a glimpse of her limitations, and bolstered his hope of a fair fight should it come to that. As the night wore on, however, it was becoming clear that she would simply attempt to slip away again.
The Hunter was confused again by her reaction to her own blood, the near-panicked murmuring and wiping. It was almost as if she loathed something about herself, or feared it. Perhaps she was fledgling enough to have retained a shred of her humanity, futile a battle as that may have been. It was a conflict that Jashin could fully empathize with, for it had been one he had found himself on the threshold of. Near the end of his enslavement Carmine had become mad with the thirst for his blood and the desire to prove herself superior amongst her own kind. The vampiress was convinced that she possessed the ability to Turn a divarian, and set about to do just that. Carmine's feedings had always teetered on the edge of erotic and masochistic, blending pleasure and pain in ways that had made Jashin both love and hate his mistress. Once Carmine had set her mind to task, he knew only pain. She had nearly succeeded, his anjir had said, but Ero and the other Hunters unwittingly intervened and saved him from the threat of becoming chiera. Deep within himself, Jashin had known such a thing to be impossible; all divarians knew they were anathema to the chiera and their powers. Yet Carmine's command over him had shaken that belief, and it had nearly cost Jashin his soul.
Thank the Goddess it was not too late for me, he thought. Sadly, it is so for this one. She fears and she feels, but soon she will only hunger. Best to end it quickly and let her retain even a drop of what she was before.
"The fate of your exalted, and of your kind, is not my concern." Steadying himself for another flight through the woods, Jashin stepped with her. "My concern is for the safety and return of those lost. Show them mercy and speak on what you know, and upon my honor I will see you are shown mercy in equal measure when you face judgment before the Circle."
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 8, 2015 1:37:14 GMT
Lost? There were people missing and he was investigating. Suddenly things began to make sense. He was hunting the one who caused the disappearances and because she was a vampire, it 'of course' had to be her fault.
She shook her head and sighed. "I know nothing of anyone missing. I go to the Tavern once a moon because the matron knew my Sire and I promised I would let her know I was all right. I almost never leave my keep other than that. So please... just let me go!"
She felt her skin prickle as another warning sung through her to let her know to seek shelter. Biting her lip, she glanced at towards the east. She couldn't see the sun, or even false dawn, but she felt it. Suddenly panic ruffled her into a shiver and she rubbed her left arm with her right hand as if cold. "I have to go... please understand." And as she moved with an unexpected burst of speed, a whisper fell from her lips. "Forgive me... I am so sorry." She reached both hands out, palms flat, locked her elbows and launched forward to thrust him back and give her a chance to get away.
If it worked, she would spin on her heels and run for Serenade. If it failed... well she hoped it wouldn't.
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 8, 2015 5:03:18 GMT
Jashin found himself stunned again by her answer. It was so simple as to be plausible, yet more questions bubbled to the surface of his mind. If indeed she had no knowledge of where the captives were, or their fate, she still could lead him to ones that might. And a keep? Such a place had not been mentioned to him by the grandmasters, nor by the authorities of Aisan. How could a gathering place for chiera have been kept secret from both the kingdom in which it lay and the eyes-and-ears of the Hunter's Conclave? And the proprietors of the Wandering Minstrel were chieran sympathizers? Such a notion shook him to his core. Gestav and Mira could have been thralled or compelled by vampire blood magick as well; he had seen such a thing regularly during his time with House Selimnar, and there were no telltale signs.
"Forgive me," she sighed, looking as apologetic as she sounded. "I am so sorry."
The chiera began to move, and his body reacted before he fully understood what she was doing. Jashin had been so focused on keeping himself prepared to follow her flight, he was not ready for her to blur at him with her hands outstretched. Worse, he surged forward like an arrow loosed from an archer's bow and met her attack squarely. The force of their impact drove the breath cleanly from his lungs and sent him crashing into the brush in a tangle of arms and legs. The divarian snarled at his own carelessness while he twisted his body with the impact to kip back onto his feet awkwardly. Sighing a prayer of thanksgiving to the Goddess that his fali'sara was still nestled in his grip, he scoured the copse for signs of her. Snapping branches and rustling leaves alerted the Hunter to his fleeing prey, and he took off after her at a full sprint. Within moments, he sheathed his blade and began to weave hai'zjin through his nimble fingers.
The chiera had a good headstart on him, but he meant to close the gap swiftly and end this sordid game.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 8, 2015 5:23:40 GMT
She had figured her impact would leave him crashed several feet away on his backside. She hadn't figured he would meet her nearly half way and jar her arms into her sockets so badly as to leave her on her backside as well.
She recovered swiftly enough, guessing this was possibly her last chance, and rolled to her feet and once more took off like a shot into the woods. Her initial stumbling and recovery left her making as much noise as a newborn doe and it took several seconds for her to rein in her crashing, headlong charge and run with a bit more stealth.
Her shoulders ached as if she had slammed fists first into a solid wall, not a man. She shook her arms lightly and growled under her breath. "Again, Alexa... had you fed..." And this time the thought brought the beast to the fore of her thoughts. She bit her lip and felt her fangs begin to lengthen. A small fractured second of resistance and then a drop of blood as her fang pierced her lip. She licked the salty vitae and shook her head. "No.. please... not now!" But it was almost too late. She had to stop running a moment or the beast would think it was on the hunt and she would never regain control.
Thinking she was far enough ahead to chance it, she stopped and leaned on the nearest tree. Closing her eyes, palms holding her against it almost as if she was going to do pushups against the bark, she clenched her fingers and tried to stem the flood of urgency that swelled through her as 'it' tried to control her actions. She didn't feed often enough to have this side of her under control. And because of that, it controlled her. She was so caught up in the thrum of want in her head and the need for blood in her mouth that she was momentarily oblivious to what was happening around her.
|
|
|
Post by Jashin on Feb 9, 2015 6:54:32 GMT
Arms pumping and feet light, Jashin raced through the forest after the chiera. The canopy was too dense for him to make another aerial leap, and the forest was too thick to chance any offensive magicks. So he ran, channeling his hai'zjin into his body until he ghosted across the landscape. The divarian could feel her now in a manner of speaking; not a clear direction, but the tightness coruscating along his skin was like a needle being drawn by a lodestone. The distance between them was slowly closing, which only made it that much easier to find her. Not taking this newfound sense entirely for granted, he used his eyes and ears to pick up other signs of her passing. A broken branch here, a swipe of mud there, and the faint rustle of something large moving fast through dense growth. Yet as he neared her, that bloodlust was slowly welling up inside him once more. It was a fight to control his hai'zjin and keep that dark urge at bay. He needed her alive for the moment, and she had given him no real reason to outright murder her... if slaughtering something that was supposed to already be dead could, indeed, be considered murder. It shouldn't matter, didn't matter. Jashin was a Hunter, and that meant following the laws of Conclave, which meant taking her in if at all possible. So much could be learned about chiera from her; most of the world still thought vampires were a myth. He would do his duty if he was able... if she didn't make him kill her outright.
Jashin felt her before he saw her, and he slid to a halt near a stout oak. Using his momentum and a burst of hai'zjin, he slammed his knifehand into the trunk and sent another barrage of large wooden shards lancing in her direction. So strong was the force that it shattered the thick bole and toppled one of the lowest branches to land at his feet. On instinct he scooped up the jagged bough and charged her, roaring his savage fury. The Hunter was weary of the games, the running. If she did not want to come with him, he would simply break her and drag her back to Conclave for questioning. The disappearances made too much sense with a chiera in the region, and there were probably more. The divarian no longer cared for her concerns, her apologies, or her naive excuses. She was a vampire, and her kind was a blight on the Realms. Something inside him demanded her destruction, and he could no longer deny it.
In his bloodlust haze Jashin had not noticed the furrows his fingers had carved into the bole of the oak: four clean-shaven corrugations that would have made a bear hide in shame for their depth.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 9, 2015 7:19:09 GMT
She felt him behind her and clenched her teeth tighter. The Beast was being for release and soon she wouldn't be able to fight it. It was true she wanted to taste him... but not this way. If she lost control not only would she harm him beyond what was pleasurable, but she'd be so lost in the moment she wouldn't remember anyway.
She felt the air between them comes as he rushed her. She spun and planted her back to the tree to have herself and looked him straight in the eye add he came towards her in a fury. "Don't do this... you don't have to do this, Hunter..."She realized she hasn't found out his name. Curious thing to consider with one of them about to die horribly, but suddenly it mattered. "No!" She screamed as he came close enough to touch.
Her hands shot out to grab his wrists even as a blood tear feel to her cheek. She had to stop him, help him... save herself. Even add her face began to change, unbidden, if he stared back at her, he'd see the look of fear and panic of the hunted... not the hunger of a hunter.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 10, 2015 21:48:42 GMT
Feb 9, 2015 Midnight RPd on Yahoo Messenger
Jashin--no, the Hunter--snarled as her slender fingers locked around his wrists and halted his overhand blow. Body moving on instinct from years of ceaseless training he locked his arms and leaned into her, heaving upward with his leading foot and driving his knee home to her defenseless midsection.
Alexa wasn't prepared for the literal low blow and as his knee connected with her midsection, she half doubled over. To her credit, she kept a hold of his wrists, though her grip wavered slightly. Whimpering with confusion she shook her head. "Why... why are you doing this? Please... I don't want to hurt you." She kept her head down hoping that by avoiding his gaze and squeezing her eyes tighter, she could somehow will him away. The beast inside her clawed for release and her nails began to grow as she began to lose her fight to the frenzy. "I just want to go home!"
Whatever the instinct that churned inside him that drove his bloodlust nearly howled with glee when the chiera crumpled against him. Yet it was enraged tenfold when the impact did not lessen her grip on his wrists. Her mewling only served to add to his revulsion for his enemy, made him want to be sick. As a divarian, he had been raised to revile the chiera for what they had wrought upon Enos, and to respect them as cunning adversaries. This whimpering thing was neither conqueror nor warrior, and what was left of his High Mind almost felt sorry for her. In a sad way, she was a tarnished mirror to him: seemingly lost in her own body, struggling for a sense of self. Before that sentiment could take root and sprout thought, his Instinct dashed it away. Balling his fist and clutching the makeshift club, he dropped his weight and flexed his elbows, driving his body downward in a hammer blow.
"Nai," he snapped. "Va ges tei'kaj!" (“No, you will come with me.”)
As he drove downward she felt her knees about to give. His strength was rooted in resolve and rage, which gave him the upper hand. But her strength was in preservation, which suddenly made them nearly evenly matched. He growled something she didn't understand and as her eyes began to haze a deep crimson, she managed to slide sideways and fall with her back towards the ground.
The tree scraped harder across already torn back flesh and she bit her lip as the pain seared through her. Alexa hoped to roll the man off her as they hit the ground, letting his momentum carry him just a bit past her form so she could roll out from under him and take off once more. If she could just make it home, everything would be ok.
So intent was the Hunter on his attack that he was not full prepared for his prey to give out from beneath him, let alone shift his weight and use it against him. A voice in the back of his head chuckled sadly at the turn of events and his body was carried almost over her shoulder and into the air; Ero would likely have something to say about his carelessness, admonish him ad nauseum about his Conclave defensive training. He grunted as his body hit the ground, her grappling keeping him from taking the impact as well as he could have. Thank the Goddess, his armor saved him from the sharp rocks and tangled roots of the forest floor. Releasing his hold on the branch, Jashin rolled his shoulders and snapped his wrists, hoping to wrench free of her grip and regain some measure of control. Truth, they were both prone, a stalemate. Yet her grip on his wrists gave her a slight edge that he fully intended to relieve her of.
As they hit the ground, her slightly pointed fangs punctured her lip and drew blood once more. This time the vitae wouldn't be simply wiped away. As it trickled down her throat, a growl any wild animal would be proud of welled up from deep inside her slight frame and echoed into his chest where her head was nearly nestled. "Let her go..." was the half growl, half demand a voice rumbled. Its depth seemed a bit too deep to have come from her. Part of her mind screamed to feel the control loosen. She felt the hunter's release of his weapon and took the opportunity of his wrist movement to let go and once more make her escape.
As he made no move to grasp her immediately, she scrambled to her feet and once more took off running. Her pace was slower than before, she was wounded and her back burned from the abrasions the woods had given her this night.
Jashin blinked at the discordant purr that came from the chiera, barely recognizable as speech, before he was able to snap his wrists free of her grip and roll away. No, he realized, she let me go as well. His legs twisted expertly to help him kip up into a crouch, clawed hands poised to receive her next attack. He almost groaned audibly when she was gone again. The draw to her, however, was stronger than it had been even moments ago and he was able to give chase again.
Brute force had not worked, nor reason, nor prepared convention. To subdue her, the Hunter would have to take her in-hand and engage her in close combat. Her strength had taken him a bit by surprise, though his body bore the scarred history of abuses by chieran hands. A darkness fell over him in that moment, for he realized how much of his enslavement he had shut away during his time at Conclave. Now he was a free man, and well-trained, facing the selfsame monster that had taken his life and shattered it. Though this one was not directly responsible for his suffering, her kind had likely taken those missing. Wherever they were, he was duty-bound to find them and liberate them; had they been Turned or slain, it was also his duty to lay them to respectful rest.
As he ran, he found his pace slowing just enough to maintain a manageable distance between them. His prey was fleeing to her den, and the Hunter would follow. A part of him feared encountering more chiera, those that she could be aligned with, but it might have been his only chance to learn the truth to her words. If she was truly alone and not responsible for their disappearances, he had much to atone for. It did not change the fact that she would have to be captured and taken to Conclave, but it would alter his tactics in the doing.
She made it. She saw the tall trees that lined the wild grown drive towards Serenade and allowed herself a small sigh of relief. But the Beast wouldn't allow that. It was hungry now and was upset she had run from her prey.
"He isn't prey.." She whispered to the growl inside her. But as she rounded the house and finally stopped on the back balcony, she knew it was a losing battle. Blood was all she desired...all she craved...all that would satisfy and calm the creature in her that was the animal side of her.
She had known it would control her and had waited too long to feed it. Now it wanted the last person she would have chosen. She paused on the balcony and closed her eyes. She felt the cool predawn air on her bare bleeding back where the bark had nearly disintegrated the silken top from her. "No!" She said to herself. But the voice didn't want to be calmed. It didn't want to be rational. It wanted the Hunter's blood in her maw and would not stop till it was appeased.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Feb 10, 2015 21:49:26 GMT
As Jas came around the corner he would see her back side. But he would also see her hands, slowly unclenching at her sides as she fought not to tear her own palms up when nails began to grow long and sharp in preparation for the frenzy to come.
As the density of the forest began the thin, Jashin's pace slowed to a steady trot. He could see large streams of silvery moonlight pouring down from a tattered sky, not the pale strands that had nearly forced their way through the thick canopy before. The bite of salt was in the air as well. How far had they run, that he was so near the coast that he could taste the ocean with every pull of heavy breath? His mind poured over the mental map of the Hasdran Province, but only the peninsula could have provided such a variety of scents and sounds. Pressing his back to a tree, the Hunter's searching eyes noticed a ribbon of the deepest blue woven amongst the blackness of the horizon.
Dawn approaches, he noted pensively. Likely she will seek shelter, a place to hide away the day. This is her territory...
With a heavy grunt of disgust Jashin pressed on into the yawning clearing, following the furrow his prey had cut through the nigh-chest high grass. This close to dawn, the chiera would begin to grow lethargic. Yet with a pursuer, she would also become increasingly erratic and dangerous. He had seen firsthand the animalistic panic and fury a chiera was capable of with the threat of the sun's touch, and had no desire to meet with that manner of beast. He would have to find her quickly, subdue her brutally, and...
A shrill keen smashed into his skull and rolled over him then, flooding him with both pain and vertigo as he had never experienced before. He clapped his hands over his ears instinctively, but this was an attack on his psyche and not his senses. His knees buckled beneath him, and he convulsed on the open plain in agony. Though his logical mind knew he could not escape the sound, his body thrashed and bucked wildly trying to get away from it. It vanished eternal moments later, leaving him gasping and sweaty, a boneless pile of confusion. It took his body little time to recover, for the only stress exerted was of his own doing. Calming his mind and centering himself, he realized that he had clawed his way back towards the tree line. Jashin tensed to take a step forward, but a voice within him cried out against it and he stopped.
Rage and indignation welled up inside him, the bloodlust returning unfettered as he realized he would lose her if he could not circumvent the preternatural attack and find her before she went to ground. It could take him the entire day to puzzle out the attack and how to properly counter it, and by nightfall she would be refreshed and more likely to slip away. As this singular chiera was his only solid lead, he was loathe to walk away. Worse, Conclave would see this as a failure and dishonor would come to his already-disgraced anjir. Gathering himself, he plunged headlong across the plains once more until that selfsame wail dropped him.
The Hunter writhed and warred against himself then, wanting to flee the sound but determined to press on. He had found something to believe in again, in the Conclave and in his anjir, and he could not abandon his course. Sorrow and rage boiled together and filled him with their seething churn, smashing against his already-prickling skin. Jashin felt about to burst from the inside with the force of it all, wanting so very badly to surrender to his instincts and just be as he had an eternity ago in his homeland. He clawed at the earth and howled into the night against the keen ringing in his mind, and still he could not be free of his suffering.
Let go...
The divarian's mind plunged into the pain in that moment, and it rolled about him like an icy flow. It shock brought clarity, shattered the pain of the screaming and forced its way through every fiber of his body. Deep inside him, something rippled and was gone with an almost audible snap, and he felt... free. The glacial energy rolled through him and rippled along his skin like a boiling tide, and his conscious melted away beneath it. Jashin could feel the ebb and flow of the nearby ocean echoed within himself as the force that gripped him both pushed and pulled at his very being. His mind screamed at him to fight against it, to hold on, but Jashin latched onto his instincts and rode the current to its conclusion. In that moment, he truly surrendered and let the world burn around him with wintery talons.
The Hunter opened his eyes once more as the pain and power receded to almost deafening silence. There was no biting keen or wracking pain. He could feel each blade of grass beneath him pressing against his skin, the soft kiss of sea air whispering against his face. Verdant scents came to him so crisply and clearly, the divarian could nigh visualize every fern and frond. The chiera's scent, he realized, burned in his mind like a hidden sun and pulled at him all the stronger. He knew where she was now, as surely as if he could see her standing before him. Carefully, very carefully, he got to his feet and scanned the grasslands. Yet it was not the scene before him that tickled his mind, but the oddness about him.
Jashin did a full turn, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. There was a newer, fainter scent mixed in with the grass, but he could not make out what it was. He could only liken it to the smell of something wild, of fur and sweat and strength. it could only be paralleled to his time in the Conclave stables, surrounded by powerful muscle and sinew wrapped in painstakingly-bred horseflesh. But it was something more dangerous than that, savage, and he turned twice hoping to find it. If something else was out here with him, he wanted to find it before it found him. Scrubbing his face with a clawed hand, Jashin's mind whirled with the possibilities as he moved cautiously onto the field.
His hand…
The divarian blinked and stared at his hand for a long moment, stunned. No, it was more a paw than a hand, slender digits covered in a thin veil of black fur tipped with compact razor claws. His palm was thick leathery flesh that such talons slid along easily but did not pierce. Thin bands of the deepest grey cut across his black coat in mottled patterns, and a thicker pale fur stretched from the outside of his wrist and ran up to his elbow. Very carefully, Jashin patted his body in hopes of learning the extent of the change, shock and confusion dulling his thoughts.
The divarian tested his nose carefully with the tips of his fingers and found instead a very blunt and blockish muzzle. With a chuckle of amusement, he ran his tongue along teeth befitting a forest hunter and nearly nicked himself for the doing on pointed canines. He could feel his bladelike ears twitch this way and that in echo of his thoughts, and with each new sound that came to him. Jashin rose to his full height and stretched, muscles he only remembered having in his oldest dreams tensing and relaxing in places foreign to him. It was all very strange, for he felt as if he had merely awakened from a long slumber and needed to move. A rustle behind him brought him about in a rush, only to find the field still empty. It took him two more lightning quick turns to realize that it was the long, thick tail he now bore that was brushing against the grass.
|
|