Welcome to Gaia! ::

Auri was standing in front of the door, just far enough back not to be hit by it when it opened. In her hand was her mother's handkerchief, the one thing she had she knew her mother had touched. She had found it when she was four and had been taken to see her aunt. It took almost half an hour of tantrum for her aunt to finally give in and let Auri keep the handkerchief, but since then, Auri wouldn't be without it.

Tenolk suppressed a shudder. He hated it when she did this, like she knew he was coming and was ready for him. It didn't matter how long he'd been caring for her, he'd never get used to that.

Auri blinked at him once then dropped her gaze to his feet.

Tenolk, his voice gruff, "Come on." And he started back out into the complex.

Auri followed.

( biggrin )

The book that she pulled out was another thing that had caused Tenolk to question her supposedly deficient mental capacity. Although ultimately he still believed that something was wrong with her ability to think and communicate, there were some coincidences that sparked his imagination. He had reacted with amazement and curiosity when she had slid the book off of the shelves of her aunt's library, not realizing that his emotional reaction affected her decision to keep it. What made it all the more strange was that it was highly likely that he could not read, yet he recognized this book.

It was merely a collection of exotic fairy tales and excerpts of traveler's logs. Some of it was quite badly written, or badly translated, and because of the foreign nature, many of the tales had a quite unsatisfactorily ending. Auri would know, because despite her general isolation, she had been told her own country's fairy stories when she was younger. This was a common practice not just at the birthing compound, but in many places of Feretris among second class women. Bedtime stories would continue for any girl child, often until the child outright requested that the stories cease. This was in part due to the low literacy rate in Feretris, especially among lower class citizens, and especially in more remote compounds such as Terrice Estates. It was partly her continued lack of communication during such rituals that had convinced those who knew her that she was retarded. The stories had stopped of their own accord, because every one was convinced that she did not understand them, and eventually even second class women no longer saw her to bed or saw to any of her other necessities. She was beneath even them, a waste of their time.

In many cases it had been to her benefit that she was beneath so many people, that she went unnoticed. It meant that the decline of Terrice estates over the years did not concern her, because she held no personal investment in the wellbeing of even her own relatives. It meant that she had no idea that slaves ever escaped here, nor did she have any idea where the new ones came from, if she happened to notice them on her rare excursions outside her room. It seemed that the world came and went without meaning around her.

Yet these events held meaning to Tenolk, her aunt, and many other observant men and women of the compound. Slaves seemed to disappear at an alarming rate near the mountains, on hunting outings and whatnot, and it was highly unlikely that they were all eaten by bears. They must, then, have gone somewhere, if they survived escape. Auri's aunt had good reason to suspect an ex-slave village hidden in the inhospitable terrain of the mountains west of the compound, but had few resources to search for it, and so had failed to find definite proof, or the village itself.

Yet such a village did exist, if you could call it that. When news reached this village of the upcoming raid, they began preparations. The raid was an uncertain thing at the time of the warning, but it was a thing of hope. They could not come south in time to aid the raid against Eldic Estates, yet they readied their weapons and their able-bodied men. Eldic Estates was not the place that most of them had a quarrel with, any way. The few slaves that escaped from that stronger, more tightly controlled compound, were apt to head south into the plains, a more viable option from that location. These slaves were from Terrice Estates, and from more northern compounds, full of bitterness and determination.

When the raid did occur, the escaped slave village could see the lights of the fires from their higher altitude. By the time that a female messenger named Anth had come to warn Terrice Estates, even some slaves in the compound already knew. Anth had received instructions to deliver her message directly to the head of the compound, but mistress Slevia was on a hunting trip, searching for a mysterious white beast with a horn on its head, said to be able to grant wishes and good luck. Thus, the news was necessarily delayed as Anth stubbornly sought after Slevia in the woods. At the same time, armed slaves were rushing down the mountain towards the compound. At the same time, Tenolk was placing Auri in a closet.

Auri could feel distant echoes of emotions centered around fury and pain. Pain was sometimes hard to distinguish from psychologically induced emotions, especially at a distance, but this pain was very strong. People were dying as hapless women and brainwashed slaves on the western edge of the compound met with the first wave of the surprise attack.

((this is happening at the same time as another thread, so I don't know for sure yet whether some other PC characters will be coming your way either during or after the attack))

Like a weight pressing her down, trying to crush her beneath it, the pain was relentless. But having experienced it for a few minutes now, Auri was beginning to adjust to the weight of it. And she wished, fervently, that she wasn't. Because now she could feel their deaths. The pain was almost secondary to the surprise or hate or disappointment or loss that was carried with each individual death.

And while Auri wasn't normally able to pick up full thoughts, something in this combination of over stimulation and mass deaths was making her more sensitive. And with each death she caught a glimpse of the person who died, of their life, their plans, their regrets, perhaps it was their souls she was feeling. Each coming and going in a quick rush of pain and sorrow.

And buffeted about in her own head, Auri discovered something stable. Something constant. Different from any other mind around her, Auri discovered another thought linked to her own, from very far yet very near.

Wild and chaotic and young the other mind was aware of Auri, but even its . . . no her mind was more stable than what Auri was currently enduring. Clinging wordlessly to that rock in the raging river of emotions currently trying to smother her, Auri sobs silent tears.

((Holding for Penden))

((thanks for the heads up - I know you have plans so I've not been taking things too far - let's see what we can to in the purely mental arena))

Auri didn't know who or what that stability was. But she was willing to take any port in a storm. Clinging to the alien mind as her body curled in on itself from the empathetic pain it was experiancing, Auri didn't try to communicate. She didn't know it was possible. She wasn't even aware she could project her own emotions, she'd only ever done it when she was in pain and only very slightly at an instinctive level.

Perhaps if she'd been trained in her gift, if she'd been payed any attention to by her aunt, surely Auri's secret would have been discovered. And she wouldn't be in this situation now, not knowing how to stop the external stimuli that threatens to overwhelm her completely. Even a trained empath would be having problems under this deluge.

But Auri wasn't trained, and Auri wasn't like other people. Something in her mind had never been quite right, but still her mind threatened to crack and break from what she was enduring.

And so her mind attempted to flee. To escape the torture. And an alien mind was there, one Auri could focus on.

Auri could feel the conflict of that other mind, questioning if it should respond to Auri's presence. Any other time Auri would have pulled away and hidden as she always did, afraid of being discovered. But there was no place left to hide.

((I just realized that this will be better done in a separate thread, the dragon world bit, so that when the other character do get here, it's not confusing who is where))

It was then that Kera, who had lept chaotically through the fighting, found Auri by following the source of the mental outpouring. As a gold dragon whose specialty was defense, she felt that this was a thing that she could do something about. Human emotions were mild compared to a dragon's, so Kera had little trouble finding the very closet that Auri stayed in.

She had just begun the containment when she heard Calen telling her to run. No time for finesse! she complained to no-one in particular, and began prying at the door with her unwieldy claws. Let me in!

Large, golden scales formed the snout that poked in at her, followed by a lizard-like flick of the tongue and black, reptilian eyes. I am trying to save your life, came the thought-speech, so much clearer than the jumble of emotions that she had been feeling. Please cease resistance. Kera was pulling at a bit of wood leftover from the door in order to muscle her way into the closet enough to grab the dazed-looking human.