Outside there was a horizon speckling in deep hazy tones of lavender as the day began its ascent. The first songs of birds were lightly whistling through fogging beaks and the straggler worms drenched in the morning dew hurried for soft soils.
Soft hues and tones washed up the walls and through the empty court yards of Illowen Holding and Research Facility. Its pristine exterior, pale white blood-stones, a testimony to the conquest and structural achievements of the Eenoans.
On the outside it was a holy enshrinement of their ideals. Once inside its stone and mortar became a terrible tribute to their selfish god and his thirst from the blood of those he deemed beneath him.
Deep in its well, down staircases and through halls of such eerie similarity, winding ways that even seasoned guards and priests would get lost in, was Kohryn's cell.
Inside her eyes slipping closed, her struggle to maintain consciousness too overwhelming. When her body finally relaxed into sleep it did so entirely. Muscles falling slack as she melted into the hard floor of her cell.
Above her, through the thick of the concealment spell, the door lightly swayed open and the illusionist padded into the room on bare feet. The boards in the watchtower did not creak with his arrival and Kohryn did not awake.
_
"Who are you?"
"What are you?"
The woman had a voice that jutted through the air in barking deep tones. Asarath felt himself smiling, amusement thickening in his chest.
"Rude." Of course he expected that from the owl. Well she wasn't an owl anymore. But he was sure that it was the same being. She had the same daunting pale yellow eyes and hair so black it looked wet. She was sitting crossed legged in the owls spot, staring at the red sky, mystery and the ghosts plastered across her features.
"I could ask you the same thing."
"I am human."
Their voices echoed with hollow pitches, circling them before taking a moment to die away.
Asarath raised an eyebrow. Many creatures across the worlds and realms had a humanoid, bipedal appearance. Even he to much extent. But this woman did not feel like a mortal human. He wondered if she was clueless or perhaps lying, but did not question it, simply nodded.
"I'm of the vypnyr." He gave a playfully lazy bow.
"Like vampires?" She asked. Her face was a hard thing. And now that she was turned toward him, closer, he could see cuts and bruises marking bits of exposed flesh. She was dressed in pale linen, filthy with stains of red blood dappling folds and creases.
Perhaps she was human after all. "No. Vypnyr not Vampires. Though they were once one of our creations." Experiments they had done on humans eons ago and the monsters created in the process. Not many humans knew of vampires. They were very ancient monsters and entirely eradicated. Or so it was believed.
The woman didn't say anything. Her large eyes just soaked him in. It was incredibly intimate how she openly observed him. Gaze grazing up and down every inch of his body. She was small, 'human' supposedly, much smaller than he and yet there was a predatory air about her and a natural whisper within him that distinctly made him feel like prey beneath her yellow eyes. For a moment he expected her pupils to grow, and for the black voids to take her face. Once more suck him into their depths. But instead she found satisfaction in what she saw, nodded and lifted her head back to the sky.
Asarath felt strange. A peculiar familiarity that was… He couldn't find the right way to describe it. His heart pulling out of his chest and his teeth aching. "What's your name?"
.
Her eyes abruptly snapped away from the sky. Fiercely zeroed in on him. "You sing spells." Kohryn accused.
The being let out a laugh, a rumbling melody between giant canines. "I sing but there are no spells in my melodies. I swear it."
"Hmm." That's all she said and once more her eyes went to the red sky that hung over them sickly and starved. It churned with an unease that made Kohryn feel queasy.
The giant beneath her shifted on its feet. Incredibly tall with cropped black hair slicked back and skin a dull satin to match. Blackened eyes set with hazel glew as they watched her.
Perhaps she should have found the creature terrifying. A giant demon with large teeth in the horrid field of green and red and yet… After meeting the mimic even his strangeness did not phase her.
"Do you know why the sky is red?" He asked.
"It."
"It?" His brow raised at the harrowing answer.
"The other singing man I know says it's my power." Her hand raised to her hair, taking little strands to roll between finger pads. "I don't know about that." Nothing about that garish red seemed like it belonged to her. It scared her and still she sat beneath its canopy waiting. Her fellow prisoner would sing it to her and she would escape. She just had to wait.
The creature did not reply. Kohryn was thankful that he showed no signs of movement either. Glued to his spot, staring up at her while she waited for the sky to fall.
"You should probably leave before it comes."
"Well that's ominous." He hummed. He had a baritone voice and his personality seemed wickedly playful. He spoke with quips riding songs carried on a path to somewhere cruelty might reside. Or maybe his fangs gave his words a sinister twist.
"I'm serious." Kohryn thought of how the red mist had smacked Era. How he'd streaked through the air and how his body smashed into the great and heavy door. The Sky Terrace had crumbled beneath its weight and she'd fallen towards the Still Sea, with its morphing figure diving after her. She'd woken up before it caught her but she remembered.
She remembered! She shifted, posture jumping forwards. She remembered! "Hey! Do you know Era?"
He shook his head. "I'm sorry I do not know anyone by that name."
Momentarily she dimmed, contemplated, before leaping from the column. Landing a couple meters from the vypnyr, she brought her arms out in front of her. Analyzing them between squinted eyes. She flexed her fingers once then twice.
The vypnyr raised an eyebrow curiously.
After a moment she could begin to make out thin golden wisps. Little strings of light energy tangling around her left hand. It was the spell that connected her to Era, but they were so faint. Kohryn let out a breath of aggravated air as she tried to force them to materialize. They pulsed, brightened, then faded away.
Her hands fell to her sides as she looked left and then right. The endless green field unchanging. All that stood in its vast expanse was herself, the vypnyr, and the column.
Kohryn turned to the crumbling structure. The last time the land had rolled over the columns, sucking them under the wave of grass that carried her into the sky. She examined its base, set her hands on its sheared top and tried to push down. It resisted.
"What are you-"
She wrapped her arms around it and tried to pull it up.
"-doing?" Asked her curious companion.
She didn't reply, just took a deep breath and tried again.
The vypnyr took a step forward immediately drawing her attention. He waved one hand, shooing her to the side.
She moved away, kept a wide berth and a consistent hard stare.
This time he was the one wrapping much larger arms around the stone. With a heavy grunt, muscles coiled and swelled as he strained to pull it from the ground. The column seemed to wobble like a loose tooth but did not leave the grass.
"Try pushing it down." Kohryn suggested to the being clearly much stronger than she.
He repositioned himself, then began to push.
The column let out a wailing groan before the ground decided to swallow it up with a rumbling shuck.
The vypnyr fell back.
Kohryn shot forward. Dove for where the column sank, watched with aggravation as the grass quickly grew over the hole. Concealing whatever lay beneath the field. She fell to her knees, tore through the green only to be greeted with even more of the wispy little blades. "Damnit, damnit, damnit!" She slammed her fists into the ground.
"It's alright little bird."
Her head jerked over to the creature. "Do not call me that."
"You don't like my nickname for you."
"Someone calls me an owl and I hate it." She didn't hate the name, she hated the illusion, the mirage of Mikhail and the fake sweet words.
"An owl?" The vypnyr looked perplexed now. More so than before. "Well what can I call you then, since you don't like bird and you think I can sing name spells."
She thought for a moment. More thought of how she now sat with the giant in the grass, like two old acquaintances. Familiarity somewhere nearby that she could not separate from the man and the landscape.
The giant did not feel threatening to her, though she did keep a good distance. Cautionary to the way slit pupils watched her and how a shadow colored tongue kept licking at the points of his fangs in between sentences. He may not truly harm her but he had a look of a sly cat, contemplating a little bite.
"What's your name?" This time she asked and the vypnyr's eyes widened in response.
"Now look whose singing name spells!"
"I am not!"
"Are too! That's a name spell if I've ever heard one!" The man accused in sing song cadence. The tune in his voice was not light and floral like her fellow prisoners. His was gravely and reminded her of a caves and rushing water in the black of night. There was a chasming effect in its pitch. And he spoke every word with it, magic that was loud and profound.
Kohryn shook her head. Being accused of already knowing spellcraft and how to sing songs was too much to add to her overflowing metaphorical plate. "Fine. How about nicknames then?"
"Not bird?"
"No." She snapped with a cold glare. "You can call me….Koha."
"Koha?"
"Mmhmm. " Kohryn shrugged. It was close enough to her own name that she wouldn't get confused. "They are a mythological figure of my country." Koha had been an Ipanish god when the country had them. A deity of destiny, perseverance and will, forgotten to the annals of time. She felt her lips lift at the parallels of her choice.
"Oh, now that's an interesting smile." The vypnyr leaned closer and earned himself a sneer from the standoffish woman. He slid back, relaxed into the grass with a hum that flirted along a purr.
.
The only thing he could think about when he saw Koha smile was how rabid she looked. Treacherous yet quaint tilting slash cutting across her jaw. It was a silent smile, personal with secrets slotted between teeth that barely peeked from her lips.
"So what do you want to be called?"
She rephrased the question, and once more it rang out in sung spell, finding the remainder of the first one and fluttering around them awaiting an answer.
Asarath's eyebrow shot up again. It was uncannily like a fae and yet its tuning was deeper, thick and clearly from a dense area of energy like midworld. "Singing it once is forgivable but twice is a little insulting don't you think?"
Koha scoffed. "Just give me a damn name." The spell sang out again but this time even more dense, beginning to carry ire that matched her barks.
"Three times!"
"Listen, I don't know what I'm doing, just tell me what I can call you."
"Obviously!" His mouth fell open and he held up a hand, palm splayed, four fingers spread wide. "Very rude of you." Some playful part of him was comfortable in encouraging the scary woman to snap.
Her nostril flared just slightly on her angry face. "Just give me a name."
His expression grew bewildered and his smile faltered. Her demand became that, demanding, pulled the looming spell into itself and held it at his throat now commanding he give a name. A little more force and the blade of her new and very dense song would pierce him.
"Okay, okay." He held his hands up. "How about you call me….hmm.. Emery. Yeah." He nodded to himself, deploying a little experiment. "Call me Emery."
"Okay." Koha was staring at the sky again.
"No, right now, call me by my name."
"So many obnoxious people around these days." She mumbled to herself.
"I can be so much more annoying." He promised. "Just complete the spell. I want to see what happens."
"You have to repeat the name for it to work?"
"Yes, typically you have to sing the name you've asked for to complete the spell."
"But you gave me a fake name, so it shouldn't matter. Won't the spell just fade?"
Asarath rolled his eyes at Koha, then let his head fall back into the grass. "Yessss. I want to see what happens if you try to complete the spell with a fake name."
"Why?"
"Fucking realms! Does it matter?" Obstination seemed a core aspect of both she and the owl. The owl had refused to speak or interact with him, and now the woman, who did speak, did so with question and a mean little glare she had fixed at him the whole of their encounter.
Koha just shrugged. "IT doesn't really matter but I won't call you any name until you tell me what you're thinking."
Asarath scoffed.
"You better hurry too because if the sky comes down here it's going to attack you."
.
"Are you threatening me?" 'Emery was still smiling but there was a dangerous look brewing in his eyes. Their shine flattened almost like an animal taken by violent instinct.
"No. I am warning you. It's very violent and it's going to come for me."
Emery watched her for a moment then, still pitched back in his resting position, but Kohryn could see how the calf on one bent leg flexed and how his palm lay flat in the grass. He was ready to jump up if necessary. His gaze went back and forth to the sky.
"You can sing spell songs without trying. I want to test it."
Did this mean he was curious as to whether she could sing names not given by their owners?
"Whose name is it."
"One of my enemies." He rolled onto his side.
"And you think I can sing their name?" Kohryn was still very new to sung spells.
Emery's head tilted from side to side. "Won't know until you try."
"And what would you have me do to this enemy, should I be able to sing their name?"
Fangs pressed into plush lips as he smiled again, devilish. "I can not force you to do anything you do not want to do, Koha."
Kohryn paused to consider it. This was a fairly neutral interaction. A dream. Neither of them had any reason to hold animosity or control over the other. They were strangers and though there was an underlying current of tension, their interaction had been amicable and peaceful so far.
She would probably never meet this Emery and she did not plan to harm an absolute stranger in any way.
He must have seen her contemplating, "Listen carefully, now." He sat forward a bit making sure each syllable accompanied the right notes as he once more sang out the name he'd heard a hundred times . "Emery"
This time she heard the name in its fullness. Harps and whistles played in a scurrying melody. It was sweet, syrupy with notes of bitterness plucking up on higher strings. A moving song, quick in pace, hurrying somewhere with intent.
"How can you sing the name?" She asked in curious wonder. The song of a stranger's soul still rolling around inside her.
"I told you, I can sing names but I can not possess them."
…"Okay, Emery."
Both of their eyes peeled open as the song of his soul tunneled from her mouth and rose into the sky before swirling into the distance and becoming a fading echo.
Kohryn didn't even notice her hands had come to clamp over her mouth in shock. She looked at the vypnyr who watched the distance as the last echo finally drained away.
He grinned, manipulatively, his eyebrows raising at their ends at his thrill. "Okay, now tell him to do something."
"Umm,sit." She gave a mundane command.
"Pfffft! No you have to sing it."
"Siit-dooowwwwnnn." Kohryn tried to sing in a shaky voice and the vypnyr busted into laughter.
It took him a moment to settle down, wiping a tear from his eye, he provided clarity, "That's not what I meant. You can just say the command but think of the soul song when you do so."
Kohryn closed her eyes, tried to recall the song. Piece together its melody. She imagined a rat, running through the streets, a snagged piece of bread held in its mouth as those around panicked and stomped around. Fearful to let the little creature touch them as it's song carried it through the mayhem. "Sit down"
The rat sat, the people scattered.
Kohryn opened her eyes.
Emery looked around, frowned in approval. "I think that was it."
"Did it work?"
"I'll know when I wake up. But for now how about you give a few more commands so we can be sure.
She wondered why she was entertaining the strange man. The familiarity driving her. Or maybe simply because she wanted to. Flex her newfound willpower.
She imagined the little rat again, still sitting where she left it. "Now stand up."
The rat stood.
"Spin in a circle."
It spun in a circle, bread still between its jaws.
"Good." She finished and relaxed her control on the rat in her imagination. It looked around, frightened and scampered off.
Giggles came from the vypnyr as he swatted at his leg. "Are you having a dog do tricks?"
"A rat."
His laughter cut short and he eyed her again. "You are very interesting, you know. Very knowledgeable and you have no idea. This has been fascinating. I'm glad I decided to take a nap."
Kohryns reply was lost to her as her eyes spotted a figure in the distance. A stream of red that leaked from the sky to form a being that walked towards them with a confident stride. She could begin to make out its ever sinking features. Teeth and eyes sucking into its head and pushing out in an endless loop.
She stood. "There it is."
.
The hair on his body stood at her words. His stomachs dropped at the way her face changed. The scowl she wore releasing into a stony stare as she looked at something behind him.
The 'it' she mentioned earlier finally arrived.
He was quickly on his feet, spinning to find a red being absorbing the sky. A monstrosity with hundreds of teeth and eyes whose misting body could not find a stable image and became a mass of arms and legs striding towards them.
And echoing 'eeeeee' whistled from the sinkhole of it's head.
"You should leave now." Koha's voice became a whisper as they mixed with the howl. Pieces of command still sprinkled her words.
She took a hesitant step towards the being, then another and another.
Asarath looked to the sky, thought to will himself awake and found that he could not. "I think I must see this out to the end-"
"No." She paused. "This place," She looked around in thought then settled her gaze back on him. "This place belongs to me. And you are leaving."
A force sucked him into the sky as the edge of command finally ripped into him. The land followed suit, a place that was hers, and everything expelled him.
He watched as he was carried off and the woman resumed her journey to meet the thing she had called her power. He smiled, devious and a tad rueful, and the green field and red sky faded from his vision.