Nathair Nimhe - The Poison Serpent Swamp

[Eternal Dirge]

There was a yank inside where his stomach would be, a pull towards the ground that was almost irresistable. It sank in like a fish hook and yanked somewhere behind Damion's navel, tugging hard. It is suffice to say that this was enough to pull him frm his patient waiting, pulled towards the ground like the skippers catch of the day. He fought against the pull, trying to fly higher into the sky, away from the command.

" ******** could hear Ravens words now, traveling along the tugging in his gut, repeated in his brain like some psychotic mantra. Arms flailing in the aether, he thrashed all the harder as his struggles proved to be for nothing. What was there to hold onto here? Spirits? This land seemed dead of them, and the trees offered no solace as he was dragged backwards towards the body with increasing speed.

His spirit body bounced and rolled on the ground until at long last it slammed home into the shadow body, never giving him the time to wonder at the contradictions of the spirit realm. With a hard and painful shock he became aware of things again, the sights and smells of the world he had left behind so abruptly. Damion tried to take in air, to fill lungs that had never been made, and instead found his mouth simply opening slightly.

This did not feel the same as his body, it felt like a glove, a second skin.  

[HonoRaven]

It moved! The shadow skin had moved all on it's own, she was certain of that, and so now she let go of her shadow self's hand so she could put both palms against the construct's chest, adding two last elements... two that would only work in this shadow creature if they had a spirit to cling to.

Raven had created this body like she would have created a humanoid body, although instead of tissue she had used shadows, but on the inside it had a lot of the same places as a person would have, an empty place for larynx, heart, lungs, stomach and digestive system, as well as a space for a spinal cord running up to the skull through the backbones, but shadows didn't really need these things as far as she knew, and since she couldn't take Maximos apart to see how he worked xp Rave had devised a different way for her construct to 'live'.

Through her left hand jumped a spark of energy, stollen form Jonothan Tommorow, the electricity would first jumpstart the 'heart' and then settle itself into the spinal cord, allowing Damion's new body to keep itself running without a thought from her or him. From her right hand came her mother's power of wind, flowing into the slightly open mouth, down the throat and into the lungs to start refilling her donated blood with oxygen as the heart started pumping a mix of blood and shadows through the veins of the new body. If Damion decided to stay he would likely figure out how to use the three elements that made up his body for things that had nothing to do with running his body...

"You in there Damion?" Her voice was a bit shaky with fatigue, and a tremor of freer... what if it didn't work, if he didn't come back? What if he had lied to her and had no intention of coming back... and would now be seriously pissed off at her?  

[Eternal Dirge]

Feeling suddenly leapt to his fingers, the spasm of electricity shocking nerves that didn't exist and forcing muscles that weren't there to spasm. Damion didn't feel the electricity, just the sluggish response of a body he was unfamiliar with. It was almost maddening with the way it moved and reacted and how he felt it all. Like his body was encased in a glove or something, or as if he were drugged out. His vision swam for aminute with the effort of moving his head, before finally settling on Raven.

" In where?"

He felt his lips moving, but not the breath that would normally shove the words into the air. Out of reflex he tried taking a breath only to find that the organs normally required to do so were absent on holiday. With almost herculean effort he bent his will into lifting an arm, feeling his right arm swing around to touch his bare chest. He could see it too and marveled at the black 'skin' that covered him. Was that what was making him move so oddly?

In all reality, He was moving just fine, the tethered perceptions of his mind not yet catching up with the fact that once again it was stuck inside a body. Pitch black eyes blinked and rolled, making it hard to tell where they were focused. He was a being made of shadow and sorcery after all.  

[HonoRaven]

A moment of triumph, just a flash of utter joy before Raven settled into the visage of a woman scorned as she glared at Damion. Now it was time to fulfill her promise in full!

"Listen carefully Damion....What is your last clear memory?" She stood before him, her bloody hands on her hips as she glared up at him. His body would be working just fine, he just had to take the time to figure it all out, heck, Rae had been quite unsettled when Grace and Verandi had resurrected her... she didn't really expect Damion to have a clear idea of what had happened and what would happen next, but she had to get his mind working again for them to get anything at all done before dawn came and she lost the power boost the dark of night gave her.

Raven's shadow stood behind her, her hands on the other woman's shoulders as she silently lent her strength to Rave, smiling up at Damion with indigo eyes. This was the sort of thing Raven should do more often in the shadows oppinion... They could easily create a proper race of shadow people on this world if the priestess would only exercise her power a bit more often, and forget about the limitations of the bodies of the current inhabitants of this world. Damion was quite a good start, although the shadow thought that Raven had tried far too hard to make him human again... but that was what second tries were for 4laugh !  

[Eternal Dirge]

" Dying. I was quite content with that."

His mouth worked atleast, and as he became more assimilated with the body his perceptions sped up to match it. The jaw moved up and down to reveal more blackness within, no glimmer of light escaping. He worked the black fingers, lifting them up for inspection.

" Now....why am I black? I don't remember being black."

He knew good and well he hadn't been black, and this black was beyond any black he had experienced. This was the blackness of the stars, the soulless, lightless depths one found only between those infinitely distant suns. It would not have suprised him to find this odd covering colder than the ice of the mountains. His black eyes peered between his fingers down at Raven and her Shadow, momentarily confused as to her anger.

" This is the body Lord Dagon granted me, yes?"

He still held some fealty towards the being who had done so much for him, despite his failures. Maybe because it gave him a purpose beyond what he had ever thought for himself. Regardless, he couldn't understand Raven's anger with him.  

[HonoRaven]

"Your black because I haven't found a way to make fire stick together for longer than it takes for it to consume it's fuel....You are black because you made me believe that you were coming back!" Those last few words were hissed between her lips as a fine trembling started in her hands and worked it's way all through her body.

"This is the body Nocturne and I have granted you, so that you can keep from making a healer into a murderer! Your precious dagon has severed his connections to you, content with the new toys he created from your ritual, dagon let you die at my hands...let us both believe that it was only a small sacrifice, that you would continue to serve him after the penitence of death had been passed." With every word her voice got lower and the trembling became more obvious until she was shaking so hard she could hardly manage to spit the words out between her chattering teeth. "Well guess what! I killed you, so I brought you back, because I refuse to carry the guilt of your death with me for the rest of my very long life!"  

[Eternal Dirge]

His head jerked back abit, as if he had gotten too close to a pan of oil that chose that exact moment to start frying. Who in the hells was Nocturne? Why was she talking as if he wasn't ever coming back?

" How in the 9 hells do you know I wasn't going to come back? He told...me..."

Never beleive the words of beings whose lifespans are much much longer than yours. Damion felt the realisation wash over him like a dunk in icey water and immediately felt very betrayed and very foolish. He had known that nothing came back from death, not really anyways, or atleast in his admittedly limited experience you couldn't. He just wanted so much for it to be true so he could finally be of some help to this place.

And as she shook he stood rock steady, letting it all sink in slowly. For all anyone knew, he could have been a statue she was hissing at. Damion was content to let her yell and scream, because he didn't know yet what to say. Sometimes it was best to just stay quiet.  

[HonoRaven]

"And they told me that you were not coming back... since they are his newly chosen, and you were very dead... I had to believe them!" Raven looked down, scrubbing the annoying tears out of her eyes and managing to smear blood all over her eyes at the same time so that she looked more and more like the ghostly specter that Damion was supposed to be. "I told you I would drag your a** back if you tried to skip out on me, you should know by now that I bend the truth where I can, but I try really hard not to tell a lie..." Avoiding things was another trick she had learned, like avoiding explaining who Nocturne was...

The shadow behind Raven started to fade away, becoming nothing more than a dark patch on the ground behind her flesh and blood self. "So now you have a second chance... I suggest that you take it, and make of your life what you will. You did what your dagon wanted you too, now you should figure out what you want to do... and say goodbye properly if you chose to let your life end! No more of this summoning people just to watch you die crap!"

Her orange eyes were fierce once more as she glared up at him, wagging a scolding finger under his nose. "So, if you plan on sticking around for any length of time, the first thing you should figure out is how to make yourself some clothes...and you should be able to lighten the color of your new skin a bit, you have more than enough of my magic in that body to manage a little light manipulation."

And just like that she was done bitching him out, although Raven was still shaking, but weather from rage or exhaustion it was anyone's guess... Outbursts of extreme emotion and massive amounts of blood and power loss tended to make her just a tad wobbly xp  

[Eternal Dirge]

He caught Ravens words and saw the diverging path. She had failed to answer his question entirely, instead focusing on chewing him out further.

" Raven....who is Nocturne?"

He asked again, his voice soft as if to console. Deep down, some part of him wanted to taste the blood on her hands and go on to cause more of it to flow, and another part was sobbing over the sense of betrayal it felt. The elemental ignored both parts, pushed them aside as unnecessary and unneeded. One could be dealt with later, and the other would in time fade away or be replaced with blind fury.

" I don't care about the rest of that...I just want to know who this person is."

Especially if he owed them a part of his body it seemed. That they would help out and then vanish was likely, but their motives were bathed in secrecy and that was something that brought a twist of worry to his mind.  

[HonoRaven]

"Nocturne is... the being that gives me purpose, the reason why I still live." Truth, not a single word untrue or even slightly shady... but something told her this was a bad idea, a bad conversation to be having even if she didn't give a damn anymore about what people thought of her or her god.

"You should ask Maximos, he has known Nocturne much longer than I have... I'm certain that he could give you all the fine details. Me, I tend to see what I want to see! I see a little boy, far older than he looks, but with more tenderness to him than anyone else is liable to believe..." She couldn't help but to smile serenely, her eyes closing for a moment as she brought Him fully to mind once more...soon... hopefully she would be with him soon.

The priestess drew a measure of power from her little moment of wishful thinking, her eyes clear again as she looked up at Damion once more. "Don't worry, Nocturne was kind enough to show me how to snatch a spirit and tie it down long enough to tell it my mind, I doubt that he has much more interest in you... at the moment."  

[Maximos]

Raven had just said a whole lot, but at the same time Raven had just said nearly nothing. Which, when compared to the spirit of what it was to be a shadow and shadowy was absolutely correct. This circumstance was something special. The Shadowfather's voice was heard, without any visual representation. It would echo in Raven's ears soft yet powerful, kind and yet commanding...the formal deity rather than the playful child-god.

"You've done well. Your word is honored above reproach. And I must ask you more." Shadows rolled and leaned toward Damion in the same way grass rolls when a strong wind blows on it. This was not a hallucination, while the lean was soft Damion may notice it, if he chose to.

"A name is not enough. It carries question and doubt. This child needs more." Nocturne's voice took on a stronger tone, something near the sort of presence he used when inducting her as his chosen. "Tell him my priestess. Tell him so that he may see, and feel, and believe what this body already knows. Tell him, what I am."  

[HonoRaven]

He was being all formal in her head, and that always brought to mind the one glimpse she had of the man instead of the boy, and a slight blush crept across her cheeks as she summoned the courage to continue her explanation and give Damion what he really wanted.

"Nocturne is God of Shadows, God of the Night and dark places, Lord of nightmares...and so much more that I have only just started to see myself...You see Damion, you are now quite literally a Shadow of your former self!"  

[Eternal Dirge]

Damion stared down at her for a long moment. And then another. And then one more, just for good measure, as his brain flitted through infinite numbers of responses too fast or too damn stupid for him to give voice to any of them. It seemed like he had something to say and then just didn't say it until finally he lifted a hand and finger, opened his mouth and lowered both hand and finger.

" A god....another one?"

While he hadn't been so naive as to beleive Dagon had been the only god, in his limited experience with those of a divine nature he had really expected something alittle different. An otherworldly voice, vast shows of power, etc. Really no different from the occupants of the mainland. Those with power anyways. The "Shadow" bit caught him abit off guard, and or atleast wrong footed him vastly. Was that were Maximos got his power? What'd she mean he was a 'shadow' of his former self?

Just how much power did this new god have over him?

He couldn't help but begin to have a dim view of the gods, and added to his list of growing curiousities how long his body would last if a god had helped to make it, if such had been the case. He knew so little about creatures of Divinity, so very little.

" Why did he help you help me?"

The Dagons desires had been more of the material world, possessions, people, so on to increase it's power. There didn't seem to be a gain in Damion's mind, nothing he could provide this creature if indeed it wanted anything at all. It never occured to him that the gods may desire things other than what could be felt with the 5 senses.  

[HonoRaven]

"His motives are purely his own, but it had to have something to do with the fact that your death was breaking my heart...because only when I had given up hope of your return via dagon's hands did Nocturne intervene!" Raven had to sit down, her head was starting to pound, and her stomach was getting that tight gnawing feeling that she associated with hunger. In short she had used far too much magic this night to be having philosophical discussions on why gods did or didn't do things while standing in the middle of a smelly swamp.

Raven figured that Damion wasn't done with his questions just yet, and she didn't have any intention of leaving him alone until she was sure that he wasn't going to go right off an figure out a way to un-attach his soul from his new body the moment she turned her back on him. So she reached out and pulled a chair out of her own shadow, sitting down with a soft sigh of relief. "It isn't the first time he has stepped in to help me when I was on the edge of loosing the few marbles I have left... That is part of why I love him, Nocturne needs me, and I need him! Occasionally he asks me to do little favors for him, things that are rather difficult when you don't have a body of your own on this world, and in return I have the ability to draw on his power!" She tapped at the back of her left hand, the shadowy tattoo of a violet eye glaring at Damion for a moment again before she willed the lines back into invisibility.

"I am Nocturne's priestess, and he is my God... Not the first God I have served either, and by far and large I love him quite a lot more that the last one. Demi-gods are usually easier to deal with, but even they can be quite demanding when they feel that you owe them, Nocturne has yet to ask of me anything that I could not easily deliver." She smiled a bit at the memory of the last 'big' request, tasting the many fighters gathered for the final's after HoH 08... it had been hard, but not impossible, and she was rather proud of how she had managed to not get her a** kicked by any of those fearsome warriors. xp  

[Eternal Dirge]

That did not equate the mental formula's Damion had come up with to equal a god. Infact, that sounded more like the boss of a small business to him, the owner caring for his workers and everyone like some big sloppy family.

" Raven how many gods are there?"

He may as well have been asking how many stars there were in the sky, but if there were others out there like this Nocturne, he wanted the chance to find them. Damion had heard of other gods, but had never been able to place that title too them. To him they had just been people, people like any fighter he'd ever been blessed to face, who offered their services to the masses. The few gods whose names he did know he knew nothing about, not how they were worshipped or how they treated their followers.

He would spare little more thought on Nocturne, other than to possibly keep an eye out for such things. The shadowy eye on the back of Raven's hand gave him a symbol to look for. The massive shadow took a seat in the dirt and mud, crossing his legs under him and settling hands on knees. He would deal with the nudity issue later, and what he was going to do from here. This talk of caring gods was beginning to poke his earlier dispair into smouldering rage.