† Kohryn †
Her eyes shook as the world focused in segments and swatches. A brilliant gradient of clementine and mauve lit a deep expanse of shimmering sky, stars cast upon it like delicate lace.
Curling clouds lazily crept through the still air, awash from a setting sun that couldn't be seen from any discernible direction. Marble pillars that held up the sky sprawled in a perfect grid in every direction, their marching lines infinite. Lush grass carpeted the ground and tiny white flowers growing from thin stalks speckled it all.
It was ethereal and grand. Familiar. A place she was sure she'd been to thousands of times before. Not now. Not her, but perhaps who she once had been.
Kohryn was so in awe that it took her a while to comprehend that her legs shuffled beneath her.
One step, two steps.
One step. Two steps.
And they seemed to do so on their own.
As soon as she made the observation her feet quit moving. The world came to a stand still with her. The clouds rolled to a halt, the twinkles of the stars froze. It all stagnated in a disorienting manner.
Her arms drug through air that felt touchable, like water without its signature wet. She looked at her hands, flexing her fingers. Long and thin and a little dry from constantly kneading dough. They were hers for sure but held from her mind by puppet strings. Fingernails bit into the flesh of her palms and only a whisper of pain was felt.
.
Kohryn flinched as a groan sounded from deep beneath her feet.
A vibration rocked through the ground causing her teeth to clack and her legs to stumble. Like a dog shaking water from its fur, the world careened back and forth. She threw her arms out, rocking her balance from one foot to the other in order to stay upright. Her equilibrium rattled for a few seconds more after the quaking stopped.
A more high pitched churning came from the distance. Kohryn looked back and forth in confusion before whipping around to see the pillars begin to rapidly slide into the ground.
Her eyes widened in panic and her heart fluttered in her chest.
It took a moment to discern but the columns were not sinking. The ground was swallowing them.
In a uniform wave the plain rolled forward, rapidly growing into a tsunami of earth and grass. The rising slope met Kohryn in an instant and pulled her up. She lost her footing as it rose steeper. Arms windmilling, she threw herself backwards, and began to slide.
Cool thin strips of grass slipped through her fingers as she fought to take hold of something. It was a never cresting wave that rolled over just enough not to pitch her forward. Carried her off in the cup of its grassy hand.
Everything happened so suddenly that all Kohryn could do was gasp, instinctually ripping at grass with her stomach in her throat.
The clouds became larger and the world rolled up to meet the sky. Eventually the plain flattened. She came to a stop panting in exhilaration, grass staining up her nightwear.
The strange place resumed its stand still. Rays and streams of light burnt into the air, trailing near from not so distant stars. Clouds bubbled and bloomed in their frozen masses. The sky had become massive and the world curved and faded out on the horizon.
She sat up to discover herself in an ocean of grass. Nothing to be seen but grass. Left, right, behind, infront, all around her was grass. Grass, grass, more grass. It felt daunting. Like being shipwrecked and adrift.
The grass shivered and a rush of noise came up from behind her.
She jumped as the grass snaked across her skin before falling limp as the ripple traveled forward. Flipping over as it went, the silver undersides of the blades gave it a liquid appearance.
Kohryn looked behind her after another wave passed. An entire forest now stood where she was sure nothing had been a moment ago. The wave stopped mid way before reverting course and lapping towards the forest. Another wave followed suit as Kohryn pushed herself to her feet. How peculiar. As soon as she saw the forest the wave changed direction, almost like it had caught her attention.
Another wave rolled in, with a little more force, as if the field said, 'Go!'
So she went. Green and silver ushering her towards the trees, growing longer as she moved forward. When she reached the edge of the forest, all that remained behind her was a thick tangled wall of grass.
The grass rustled, 'go on'.
The woods echoed, 'come in'.
She wanted to question its motives but the words wouldn't form and her feet pushed her forwards.
Pewter barked willows with dainty thin leaves and wispy birch plastered in gnarled eyes danced with one another in frozen whimsy. A dangling mass of branches and beams. Lush grass and moss carpeted the floor in sheets and mounds, soft under the soles of her bare feet. She walked through natural tunnels and archways, occasionally the grass would billow and the elegant branches of the trees would shake in an invisible wind. Rippling forwards moving her in the direction of its desire.
When Kohryn would slow the plants would lash out a little more urgently.
Aside from the occasional rustle of vegetation, everything remained still. Even water in little canals and streams she crossed did not move. Its silence was unnatural and eerie. This place wanted her to leave so it could go on and the stars could twinkle and the breeze could blow and the clouds could crawl. But she was there and her foreignness caused this world to hold its breath.
Finally she emerged from the forest to another field that terraced down. Five terraces in total that led down to a giant, intricately decorated door. The grass shimmied again and it sent her towards it.
In a haze she found herself at the bottom.
Nothing existed on the sides of the door. It was just blank. No light of shadow caught on its edge.
The doors were the largest she had ever seen. Towering higher than any building in Imore. Swirling obsidian foliage and sharp petaled flowers decorated their surface. Made of thick planks of pitted and grainy black oak, gold facets and black metal brackets and hinges held the doors together.
Their grandeur was also familiar to her and for a brief moment she swore she could hear a melody vibrating deep from within them.
The wave of the world rolled forward again. It seemed exhausted as it told her once more to leave. Tired and disgusted.
With a soft click one door cracked open just enough for Kohryn to slip into.
The grass licked at her ankles again.
More vicious.
So, she, the unwanted visitor, slipped between its threshold.
🙘🙚
Darkness had completely taken the mountainside.
And right now, away from the eyes of Imore, two men were succumbing to utter lunacy.
"I cant!" The shorter of the two was pulling at the hair of his boxy head. Craning forward then back in jerky motions, tears streamed down a panic stricken face. "I can't... I can't-….I don't…" He continued to huff out cracking sobs, repeating that he 'couldn't' as he ripped out little tufts of hair. His actions grew more and more frantic by the second as the taller man tried to stop him. Soon he was jerking back and forth in arching seizures, tearing at his head.
His friend desperately gripped at his arms. "Stop that, man! You're freaking me the fuck out!" He attempted to remove his hands from ripping out more of his hair, which was rapidly becoming sparse. Large bald patches formed on the side of his head, raw with dots of blood and scratches.
The two struggled for a moment before the short one, with a strangled roar, shoved his skinnier friend and sent him sprawling across the ground.
"NO!" His eyes frantically darted around before they landed on the woman whose dark hair, in the navy of night, blended in with a slowly growing pool of blood. Faded and dim teal light silhouetted her eerily still body and the man began to scream. "I CAN'T… I CAN'T…" He stuttered as he suddenly scratched across eyes. "I CAN'T LOOK AT WHAT I'VE DONE ANYMORE!"
With a final wail, driven mad by terror and panic that scratched at his bones and choked him, he plunged his fingers into the socket of one of his eyes. Blood and fluids gushed forwards and his eye made a sickening pop as he pulled it from his skull. Nerves and tendons tethered the ocular orb to its origin and his body fell to the ground like a crumpled leaf.
The skinny one starred, mouth slack in horror.
He had only wanted to shove the woman down to teach her a lesson. Her creepy big eyes and her straightforward blunt words had pissed him off and he just wanted to teach the weird little bitch to watch her mouth.
But accidents happen in accidental fashion, which is abruptly and unexpectedly. And when the girl stumbled back, her heel caught a ledge in the uneven cobble and she careened into a small boulder. Her head caught most of her weight with a sickening crack.
She'd pulled herself up in a rush, managed to stumble forward a few steps before blood began to pour from her wound, coating her cheek and soaking her shirt. Time slowed, and after a few rapid blinks she dropped down. Body falling like a marionette cut loose, the thud carried away in the soft howl of the wind.
They both stood frozen for a moment, processing what was happening,
The ominous 'hooing' from an owl traveled through the forest when his, now maimed, companion began to panic. Madness ensued, the situation spiraling.
They had been involved in some of the shadier goings on within the convoy, but they had never brutalized a woman in such a manner. Maybe ruffed one up here and there, but grave brutality wasn't something one did in Ipahn. Very rarely in history had any gone about killing. The consequences were laid out clearly. The woman who lay in a still heap looked kinda dead to him, and when the 'mind your own business' etiquette was broken, 'an eye for an eye', 'a life for a life' was enacted.
The woman, if she wasn't dead already, was as good as dead and his friend was close to it. Exit strategies and ways to cover up the mess began to run through his mind as he wobbled to his feet. Should he leave his friend? If he left it'd look like the man had been out alone and had attacked the woman. And in a fight they had killed each other.
But that was only if they both died.
What if one of them lived and reported him?
Where could he find a place to dispose of the girl and a back street doctor to heal his friend? But he did not know this mountain and its hiding spots and what if someone sought an explanation for the critical condition of his friend, or noticed the missing girl before he could get them out of the village? Should he just dispose of them both and flee? Could he intentionally kill not only the woman but his friend as well? His mind reeled with potential solutions that played over the repetitive track of his pounding heart.
"eeeeee."
He felt it then, an emotion that traveled through him, strong and not from himself but from the air around him.
"eeeeeeeeee…"
Panic overtook him so tangible his eyes bulged forwards and he ground his teeth until they cracked. It spread from beside him and his head ticked towards the girl in increments.
She sat up rigid and staring into the night. Her round eyes had become large voids of darkness. Chunky half coagulated blood curdled on her face and a low creaking noise came from her mouth, "eeeeeeeeee…."
The man stepped back, rustling leaves and grass and in a blur the woman's head snapped to the side. Feral and predatory eyes now set upon him. He froze in place, swallowed by her gaze as that same retched sound came from her lips.
"eeeeeeeeee-"
Air violently dragged in and out of his lungs and the hair on his arms and neck bristled. Like a skittish prey, his muscles locked for a moment, coiling to spring, before he turned to flee.
🙘🙚
________________________________________________________________________________________________
† Mikhail †
He was elbow deep in dishwater. Goopy flour in the sink kept sliding through his fingers and he was constantly holding back a gag.
The baker paced into the back for the fourth time. He had to teach Mikhail the proper way to wash dishes after the young man had sheepishly admitted he'd never done the common chore before. The baker snorted and gave him a look of indignation when he heard this. Based on Mikhail's subtle mannerisms– and the fact that he had to be taught so much– Etan was fairly certain Mikhail came from a wealthier background. (And of course often it was only the upper classes of other countries that had the funds for such lengthy travel.) But even so, having never washed a dish before seemed absurd.
Mostly scolding mixed with a little direction and demonstration and Mikhail was left to do the job. Only briefly though. After he had burnt a good bit of merchandise, Etan was more watchful of the trainee. He returned to the kitchen every ten minutes and peered over Mikhail's shoulder to assess the quality of his work.
Mikhail was about to reassure his boss that he was doing it just how he was taught but Etan spoke first.
"Kohryn isn't back yet." The baker drummed his fingers on the counter, a light coating of concern etched into his face. There was an obvious soft spot in his heart for the young woman. "There's strangers in town, and I'm worried."
"Where was the delivery for?" Mikhail dried his arms with a towel. His heart jumped forward and his demon fluttered awake. Something interesting was finally happening.
The doorbell rang and Etan politely called to the front, "I'll be with you momentarily." Then he turned back to Mikhail. "She went up to Ms. Menias'."
"Do you think she may have gone home? Ms. Menia is her neighbor after all."
Etan shook his head. "No. She said she would return quickly and she's always kept her word. Can you go check on her?"
From what Mikhail had experienced thus far he knew that was true. Kohryn did exactly what she was told and exactly what she said she was going to do. Never in dramatic fashion, high or eager for accomplishment, but in a thin gray kind of compliance. Not eager to please but never able to displease. It was almost reassuring enough to make the mystery of her thoughts bearable for him. She was open, she was honest. But only almost.
"Of course." He readily obliged. "I'll go find her."
With a nod from Etan, who was already making his way to the front, he slipped out the door and into the back yard.
Muted conversations could be heard from the few people who still roamed the streets. The village and its guests were beginning to settle in for the night.
He found his way to the edge of the yard, where the trees began and chopped wood for the ovens concealed him from the streets. In the shadow of the bakery Mikhail took a long and deep breath.
The air around him churned with thick waves that distorted his image. Holographic scales brushed out of his skin with a cicada like rattle. The air warped and fluxed around him as he willed the demon into his eyes. It readily came forward with an excited shiver and Mikhail's pupils contracted into slits so thin they could hardly be seen. Looking out across the yard, his spring eyes roiled and blazed to life dripping with an inner glow.
He had been watching Kohryn all week and he knew she wouldn't have walked along the main road. Left on her own she took deer trails that cut directly through swaths of forest and up hills. He'd intentionally dragged her along the main paths and through the crowd to see how she and everyone else would react.
On the brush laden paths he could see trails of her so strongly, her presence carved glowing lines of satiny fabric into the air around him. All the places she'd occupied and traversed stained the mountain in a rolling wine.
He was momentarily stunned then, the corner of his lip slightly tilted up with intrigue. Their color had previously been more muted and subtle. Her trails had always looked different, like braided velvet and satin, soft and thin.
Now thick and saturated, they had become even more foreign in the web of trails.
The oracles apparitions and their familiar color flashed through his mind. The demon happily buzzed with this new development, mysteries being put together.
It brushed, more full and pressing, to his surface. Thin obsidian scales pushed up from his skin in a rattling hiss before blowing away and dissolving into the wind. He drew another deep breath and shoved the entity away. The demon typically thrilled at the suspense of a mystery, a lover of puzzles and problems, but on rare occasions it became uncharacteristically impatient. Mikhail didn't like that.
He appreciated mysteries as well, a key marker of being demonborn- characteristic compatibility. But he preferred to approach problems with rationality, taking his time to solve them in order to procure the most favorable outcome. While the demon, if it found the potential reward enthralling, would gamble. Attempt to rush.
With his demon, control only went so far. The beings of the lower realms wanted compromise, promises, and contracts and they'd ruthlessly fight for it like a lawyer with a stack of evidence in hand hounding after the promises of a sack full of coin. The demon lashed out pricking Mikhail's insides, demanding that he speak its language. Okay, okay. Mikhail hissed at the being.
He pushed his hand through the weave of trails and took hold of her ribbons. Giving the demon a taste of her essence in exchange for cooperation.
A shiver went through him and the demon howled in glee. A sound only he heard, echoing through the canyons of his beings.
Touching the webs was special, a skill few demonborn had possessed before him. It wasn't just an imprint of the people of a land, it was a weave that offered global transportation through the travels of others if one knew how to use it. For a moment Kohryn's were cool and soft then they began to cling to him while fuzz embedded itself in his hand.
An assault of thin needles stung him leaving behind a tingling sensation that crawled up his arm and across his face. When Mikhail went to pull his hand away the ribbon gripped harder, sucking it back into its folds. The stinging licks began to pull him forward, tugging at him with an awareness of his presence.
The demon howled again.
He flexed, jaw tightening and eyes squinting at the call of her trail. There was consciousness inside it he had not noticed before, but that was secondary as he wasted no time dissolving into smoke. The call sucked him into the weave.
He seamlessly shot along her clinging trails as they effortlessly pulled him up the mountain. As he had suspected it was a trail that strayed away from the main streets. The desolate path, wrought with her ribbons, seemed like a testament to Kohryns isolation.
Curiosity grew at her lack of response to it. He was entirely unsure of what she felt at all and he couldn't figure out how to approach her again to get more information. She gave him nothing to work with and the uncertainty made him hesitant in their interactions. He hated it.
A little past the tavern the smell of blood hit him.
He struck away from her traces, clinging to him like electric static as he solidified on a dark road. Fast moving clouds were quickly filling in from the sea, causing muted light from distant moons to shutter in slow captures.
Two men lay on the ground shrouded in darkness, the lazy strobes of light flashing over folds of clothes, planes and curves of skin, glossy patches of wet.
Mikhail focused through the darkness on their forms. One man's eye lay beside his crumpled body and the other took shallow breaths, his body cut up and his limbs bent at awkward angles.
Kohryns ribbons moved and curled around the bodies then twined forward and led to where she stood, tucked away from the road. Her face tilted up to the sky. The air around her felt hot and thick. Her presence had become even more tangible.
"Kohryn." Mikhail gently called for her.
She did not answer and he took another tentative step towards her. And then another. Hair on his arms rose, and the demon perched just below his surface, watching with bated breath.
"Kohryn." He called again, this time closer.
She lowered her head and tilted her gaze over her shoulder. Shadows cast over deep set eyes hiding them in darkness
He took another step forward. "Are you alright?"
…
A small, unmistakable sob came from her and it made Mikhail falter.
"I don't know." Her voice rolled up his bones and seemed to echo in his mind.
She raised her head, dim light finally illuminating her face. Her eyebrows pinched up in despair, her lips quivered, and fat tears dropped from the deepest black eyes he ever saw. It was the first face he had ever seen Kohryn make and it was horrible; a face twisted and filled with agony and it made him incredibly sad.
In a stunned silence even the demon faltered. The eyes that stared at him now were not Kohryns pastel yellow ones, but widened round pits deeper than the robes of Death himself. When the demon did finally react it surged forward with guarded interest, fear, and thrill. Scales rippled into the night.
She frightened Mikhail. That raw expression of her face, the way she cried audibly yet quietly. How it felt oh so like an act. It was true sadness trying to break free from a mask melded to its skull, pulling and pushing the features desperate to send the world a message from beneath its surface. It was unnerving but also gut retching and he strangely wanted to comfort her. He didn't want her face to look like that anymore.
"Ko-" He took a step forward, her name once more on his lips.
She fell forward. Face relaxing and body finally crumpling before he could even finish saying her name. Mikhail rushed forward, barely took hold of her as they both sagged to the ground.