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 Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:40 pm
It was early morning, a dreary, wet sort of day that had so far held nothing but rain and promised nothing but rain. There was a respite of sorts at the moment, though it was often broken by periods of drizzle, but it didn't look to last long. Here on the Dreamer's Isle of all places, one would think that this sort of weather wouldn't be allowed. But perhaps there were those who dreamed of rain and storm, and who at this very moment were delighting in the dismal weather most others would despise. All things were possible.
These were Acantha's thoughts as she trudged through the sodden leaves carpeting the ground - when she bothered to think of her surroundings at all, at any rate. Her form flickered vaguely around the edges, deep in speculations and calculations as she was. She would not be out in this weather without a purpose in mind.
Aha! She fought her way through a tangle of wiry branches and thorns, using her horn to stave off the worst of it but still getting scratched a few times - and the high-reaching rock face rose in front of her. Moss so green it almost seemed to glow rippled down it, and a few spindly bushes stubbornly clung to cracks in the rock. Muttering to herself, the Yunin began pacing back and forth in front of it as if looking for something.
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Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:45 am
 Lounging with his back against the rock face, his eyes closed to feel the drizzling mist of rain over his face, Azrael lazily twitched his forepaw, rolling the bone he had pinned under it back and forth across the moss. His ears, tilted back to keep the rain from falling into them, twitched.
There was someone coming.
Opening his eyes, he swiveled his ears forward, turning his face to the other side when he realized that the other Dreamer was coming up on his blind side. His claws extended, sinking into the wet ground around the bone protectively.
She was... interesting, he could at least say that much. Her form seemed to bleed away at the edges, flickering in and out of reality, shivering in the rainy morning like she was about to wash away into ancient dust. She reminded him of a ghost, an afterimage of death, and he watched her walk around the base of the rock, closer to him without appearing to notice he was there, with interest.
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:30 am
She was a sight, that was for certain. The dust that normally swirled up around her in pale sandy waves, soft and dry as feathers, was dampened somewhat by the weather, and it looked as though if she kept this up Acantha would soon be coated in wet leaves, mud, and smears of moss - but the Dreamer still would have raised eyebrows in any other place. Though the male who was watching her, as yet unnoticed, was no ordinary ulaya himself.
For the third time today, the branches overhead decided to rid themselves of a great shower of water just as Acantha was passing under them. She paused, shaking fat droplets from her muzzle with more than a touch of irritation. This journey was the culmination of many month's research, and hopefully would solve several questions she had been unable to resolve. But first she had to find... Well, she wasn't exactly sure, which was more the cause of her irritation than something as insignificant as getting drenched. It was called simply "the marker" sometimes, or "the guardian," or, in a particularly boring and overly wordy text even by her own standards, "the symbol from whence one may locate the passageway required to gain access..." But no sources she had found described quite what this was supposed to mean.
Maybe it was over there. A flicker of movement had caught her attention, and kept it with the glimpse of a pale object amid the puddles like oily mirrors. She moved closer to investigate, and... "Oh." There was something in those shadows. Hints of red outlined a dark form, that of another Dreamer, she thought. Acantha stood there peering at it with her head cocked to one side, taken aback at this turn of events and rather forgetting any need for greetings.
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Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 9:22 pm
She was looking for something, that much was clear - and Azrael was not what she expected to find. He watched her blink at him for a moment, apparently dumbfounded to find someone else in a place she must have assumed was abandoned. But then, that was exactly why Azrael had chosen it to relax. It was old, and because it was old, it carried the lingering smells of death.
"'Oh'?" he said, his voice threaded with a hint of amusement but mostly with curious interest. "Not the most common reaction I've gotten, but it'll do." He didn't bother rising to his feet just yet - the stone face he lay against was comfortable and cool, and the musky, haunting scent of ages long past was strongest there. "Looking for something, were you?"
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Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:06 pm
He seemed rather the worse for wear, didn't he... One eye was scarred over and clouded a murky pink, and she thought she could make out red fur outlining a jagged chunk that had been ripped out of his ear as well. The Undulcan's wings were the same bright bloodred as his good eye, and something about the way he held himself, sprawled there casually, was more than a bit... intimidating.
"As a matter of fact, yes." She didn't volunteer any more information than that, which was unusual. But she was getting tired and irate, and the fact that this smooth-voiced stranger was here to witness it certainly didn't help matters. It wasn't fair that anybody else should have the right to skulk about here. This was her place! She'd done the research, hadn't she?
Turning with an abruptness that clearly said (or tried to say), You are insignificant and I have more important things to do than waste time on idle conversation, she began pawing more closely at the drifts of black leaves that had built up around the rock's base further away. Maybe it was small enough that she'd just overlooked it.
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Posted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 8:46 pm
Azrael's ear twitched backward, then forward again. THe rain began to come down a little harder and his pelt twitched as he shook off some of the droplets. Not very informative, is she? he thought to himself, his mouth pulling sideways in a slight smile. Rising to his three good paws, he nudged the bone aside and swept his paw. "Well, be my guest."
As he moved, he revealed a curious stone face behind him. A line down the center could have made it a door - or maybe it had just cracked with age. It was inscribed with a language that Azrael hadn't had the interest or time to decipher, and in relief on the surface was an intimidating-looking creature. "Something from the long past for you," he said quietly. "The very long past."
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Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:00 pm
The sudden gravity of his words caught her attention, and she turned back toward him, for the first time realizing that the faint lines she could see in the stone face directly behind were too precise to be natural. Instantly her silver eyes lit up and she shook water and scraps of mud off her slight frame as if it was of no consequence, almost shouldering the stranger aside in her haste to get a closer look.
Yes, as she'd suspected... Etched into the worn surface were tangles upon tangles of scaly coils, like a many-headed, many-tailed snake with the mane of a lion: familiar symbol of a long-vanished group. Though most of it had been worn away or was half-obscured by dark moss, in places it appeared that the individual scales and hairs had been carved in surprising detail.
Though there was one thing she hadn't expected, or at least, hadn't hoped for: it had no eyes. Traditionally the snake symbol had none, yes, to symbolize blindness to falsehood, but if what she had guessed from Chaldin's works was true, then... If not, how was she to get in?
Her own eyes flicked up to the script incised above and around it. Truth be told, Acantha didn't know this language either, though some characters seemed tantalizingly familiar, but she knew what it would say. "The light may welcome, but oft is it tangled in the silver webs of Lie, and oft will the servants of Lie come garbed in shining cloaks," she whispered, forgetting that the other dreamer might hear. "Look at the sun in all his radiance, and be blinded truly. But only give thine eyes to the darkness, and perceive Truth..."
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:38 am
A small smile pulled at his muzzle again at her haste to get to the discovery. She was just as caught in the past as the trailing mists from her coat would have her seem. And although Azrael was not prone to seeking company or keeping it, the haunting scent of ages long past clung to her almost as thickly as it had clung to the door.
"I wouldn't have thought there was anyone left who could read that language. I can't - but you read it well." He let his eyes track over the blind snake, across its spiraling lines. "Likely, you're the only one left. Whatever lies behind this door has been dead for many ages, so long that it's likely all that remains is dust."
He paced forward with his odd hopping gait, rolling his bone before him. He tilted his head and breathed deep from the air wafting out of the door. "A tomb, perhaps. There certainly were bodies here at one time." His coat shivered, and he turned to glance at her - for all that she was still on his blind side, he could still see the mists creeping away from her. "Do you think it will still open?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 2:03 pm
She couldn't help but hold herself a little straighter at his compliment, even if it was meaningless - Acantha had just done her reading, that was all. They had guarded the secrets of this writing as closely as any of their lore. "It's from the Thannoned, a book of lore, or bible of sorts," she replied by way of half-explanation. "No outsider has read the whole thing, but this is one of its most widely quoted lines. Or was, once." It was the first time she had spoken directly to him without sounding (or trying to sound) slightly annoyed at the interruption. In fact, her voice sounded more reverent than anything else.
"Bodies? How do you know?" She knew in theory that was more than likely what she would find, but even so, she'd half-hoped otherwise. Hoped for the signs of desertion, and some clue that would tell her where its inhabitants had scattered to.
Hoped that maybe for once the objects of her studies wouldn't be long since extinct...
It was only when he moved that Acantha realized the undulcan was... a cripple. No, maybe that wasn't the right word. The contrast between the power she'd sensed in him as he lounged before the door and his limping movement now was striking. What she also had failed to notice before was the bone which had first caught her attention, and which he carried around like a kit with a precious plaything. The twin realizations made her shiver, though she didn't know why.
"It wasn't a tomb." Her voice turned irritated again. "It was their place of last refuge. Um... What exactly is your name?" She'd been carefully avoiding looking at him too long for reasons she couldn't quite explain, but with this she met his eyes, if only for a moment. The scars across the left side of his face nearly made her wince with imagined pain before she caught herself.
"If I can find the key. There's a trick of sorts, built around the inscription - or at least, that's what I think. There was something... a clue I found, or thought I found, but I don't..." She busied herself in searching the aged stone face, not so much as glancing back at the other. Acantha had read of many strange and dark things, but this male was starting to creep her out.
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 3:57 pm
"You're well-read, then," Azrael said mildly. It didn't sound like he was intending to compliment her, or to set her at ease, or to make conversation. It was merely an observation of fact; she was well-read, like he was keen-sensed.
"As for how I know - I can smell it. The scent of things dead, or long dead - be it people, Ulaya, buildings - cultures." His good eye continued to track over the door, the flowing inscription that surrounded the top of it, and then he turned his head so he could look at her with his good eye. "My name is Azrael," he said, almost as an afterthought.
He paused for a long time, his eyes taking in the details of the stone face as well as the crack running down the center. "I'm sorry if I make you uncomfortable. I suppose you can't force it open?" The two statements, like most of what he said, were delivered in the same smooth inflection, disregarding the disparate thoughts behind them.
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:23 am
"Acantha," she said shortly. The yunin didn't think she had any... talents... related to her area of expertise, besides maybe an affinity for dead languages and being good at piecing clues together. "What... What does it smell like?" She couldn't help herself; learning about the long dead was what she'd basically spent her life doing, though the fact that they were dead had nothing to do with her liking them, of course. Things had just been so much more interesting in the past. The idea that they would have their own scent was an interesting one.
The sudden changes in subject took her aback, and there was a moment of silence while she struggled to gather her train of thought again. "No," she said finally, disregarding the first comment altogether. "I shouldn't have to." That was just like a male, thinking with his muscles instead of his brain. 'Cles would never have- She shuddered suddenly, face going blank, and her form went transparent to the point of near invisibility. But it lasted only a moment, and then Acantha was studying the rock again as if nothing had happened.
A-ha! There it was. In among the mass of coiled limbs, one of the snake's tails wrapped tightly around a shape like a sphere with its center carved out: a primitive eye. Excitement boiled in her veins once again; she was so close!
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Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 7:11 am
Azrael paused, considering the question - most of the Dreamers he met were too unsettled by him to bother asking about his ability. "Hmm," he hummed to himself, thinking about what to compare it to. "Like - musk, and dust, and the scent of flowers when you've had them picked too long and they are beginning to decay. Like the way the sky smells on a dry day, when there is no rain on the horizon." He shrugged, the movement rippling through his coat. "It's difficult to find something to compare it to."
Azrael blinked slowly as her form flickered to the point of invisibility, and then stretched his neck out to see what she had unearthed. An eye. "That is what you were looking for? The key to opening the door, perhaps?" He moved closer to the door, pawing aside the moss and vines that had grown over the snake's coils, searching for another such carving.
"Here, another," he said, lightly brushing aside a mass of dead leaves that covered a second eye.
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Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 10:37 am
"Quite poetic," she murmured distractedly, only half-registering his words. Only give thine eyes to the darkness, and perceive Truth...
Rearing up on her hind legs, Acantha's silver hooves reached out to touch each of the carved eyes. For a moment she thought the awkward position would make her lose her balance, but then she steadied herself against the rock and pressed smoothly. Was that a slight shift under her touch, or was she just imagining things?
Then, quite abruptly... nothing happened. The rock face completely failed to groan like an aged decrepit and split inward to reveal the dark passageway beyond. The stormclouds completely failed to scatter to the horizons, leaving a glittering, triumphant rainbow arcing across the heavens that would mark her success...
A sound welled up within her before she realized, and then she was laughing bitterly, eyes turned up to the dreary gray skies just visible through the branches overhead. The water still dripping relentlessly from her fur felt like tears, and she blinked rapidly.
"It's no use," she said. "I guessed wrong, or it's broken, or... I don't know. Useless."
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Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 11:21 am
Azrael blinked slowly, hearing the despair in her voice. Ahhh, she must have been looking for this place for a very, very long time. "It is very old," Azrael said. "Perhaps it is stuck." He moved to the door with his bizarre limping gait, setting his bad side against it and leaning heavily, pushing hard with the legs on his good side. "If I can push hard enough, maybe it will un-stick itself-"
It was only because it was on the side of his good eye that he saw the third carving at all - and completely unlucky that he saw it just as his rear paw stepped on it. Acantha, of course, was still standing on her two, and when Azrael's paw stepped on the third, the door gave a great shudder and swung open all at once, like something barring it had been removed from the inside.
Azrael scrambled to stay on his feet, but the consequence of using the side with his missing leg was toppling over onto the floor just inside the doorway. He gritted his teeth and landed with a grunt as the air was knocked out of him.
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Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2008 6:18 pm
Stuck? Yeah, that was definitely likely.
Suddenly the stone beneath her hooves was moving; as if in slow motion she saw the rock floor beyond rearing up at her face, felt herself toppling forward now that there was nothing to support her upper half but air. Acantha hit the ground with an explosion of dust almost on top of Azrael. For a moment she lay there, breathing heavily, then suddenly realized where she was and rolled away from the other dreamer, ears flattening for a moment in embarrassment.
"Thanks," she muttered awkwardly. Had shoving it actually worked? The air rushing outward was musty and herb-scented. It reminded her of what Azrael had said about the scent of death, and she breathed it in to calm herself before looking back at the passageway that had been revealed. The floor here was smooth from the tread of generations of paws; near the walls it became more roughened, with simple spirals and designs outlined in bas relief. They stopped at about shoulder height and were unmarked by paint or dye; for a race used to living in darkness, touch would be more important than sight here. Some of them were directional symbols, she knew, but Acantha was familiar with barely a handful of them. Maybe Azrael's... olfactory talents... would come in handy later, though she hated to ask him for help.
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