|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 10:10 am
By the second day Alva had got back into the swing of riding. In truth she missed it, and it made her miss her home. All the comfort of the Pantheon was clearly turning her soft she thought as she held tightly to Athanasius. Sanngrigor still riding behind them. She was quiet, thinking things over, she was quite aware that the goddess was becoming stronger and soon her time would be done. She was comfortable with that, she had always known she would not live to old age, being what she was.
"Is it much further?" She asked the Spirit Guide softly, she was still eager to explore this new world they were in search of.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:21 am
"It should not be too much longer now." It had been a long time since he had made his way to the world tree the long way, so to speak. Thankfully he remembered the way easily enough, and the markers he had made inside the tree itself would guide them where they needed to go.
Given her companionship, Alva certainly had time to think over everything she wanted. Ankou seemed to enjoy the silence and did not break it unless it was to answer her or the valkyrie, or if he had something meaningful to say. Idle banter had never been his forte, to be honest.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 12:18 pm
Val liked to talk, but she also appreciated that not everyone did. If she had been leading the expedition there would be singing and jokes and laughter, keeping people's spirits high. She didn't know if Ankou liked to sing, if he did she very much doubted he did it in public. He was quite a private person she had learned and she respected him for that.
"Thanks." Alva replied with a smile. It was a little awkward, the silence, but she was used to it. When she was on a raid they did not speak until they had charged in and then it was purely to shout directions.
"Did it hurt? When you changed from host to god?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2014 11:15 pm
That was certainly a loaded question. Was Alva worried about her future ? Most likely. Adrian had, in his own way. He had not thought about the man in such a long time, to be honest, and it was strange to think of him now. The one soul he could never return to rebirth. There were countless others, but Adrian was different, if simply because his soul burned, somewhere, deep down inside him, in the barest flicker of the man he had kept. Just enough to do this, as he had asked of him.
"It did hurt." Ankou admitted. No reason to coddle her, after all. The truth was best in this case. "But I do not think it always does. Like many things, it depends. If there are not any... extra parts involved, the pain is likely a lot less. It might also not be your pain." He had not left his host to suffer though this. He did not think Valyrmora would let her, either. It was bad enough to be snuffed out like this, as far as he was concerned. No need to add agony on top of the mix.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 10:36 am
She was aware that the god did not necessarily have to consume her, there could be part of her kept. Though perhaps it would be better to be taken into nothing, then there was nothing of you to mourn or feel pain.
"I'm not afraid of it, just curious." She replied, keeping her eyes ahead. "I always knew my death would be painful, at the business end of a bow or arrow." she supposed she had a practical view of things. "I always knew my life would be short too. People don't live too long in the wilds."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 11:20 am
"That is often the case, yes." He could agree with that. Alva and Valyrmora would work out in between them something that worked for them both, as most host and god who were able to talk to each other without animosity often did. What felt right for them didn't have to be what felt right to everyone else.
What he had done to Adrian seemed cruel at first glance, until one stopped to realize in how much torment the man would have otherwise been.
It made him wonder if the best way tp satisfy Alva's curiosity was to simply show her. It took a moment of focus, but then he did. It wasn't so much recalling how Adrian had looked like than remembering what it was and reconstructing it as best as he was able. A smaller, much more slender build, long hair so red that it looked like flames. His skin had gained some color, but was still much paler than it should have been. And then his eyes hadn't changed at all.
"This isn't flawless. But you get the idea." She could guess where the pain he spoke off had come from. Those wings had to come out from somewhere, after all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 12:30 pm
Alva had not expected him to change like that, from the impressive god to a young man, probably a similar age to herself. He was much smaller, and of course had no wings, should could only imagine what it would feel like to change like that, to grow so tall in a short space of time and to have those wings.
"I see." She replied. "It can't have been easy." She knew from conversation and meeting others that there were various stages to their evolution.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Jan 17, 2014 9:28 pm
"It does not happen all at once." Thankfully. That would have been too much for anyone, god or not."It is small at first. The hair color changes. Some spots of one's skin, perhaps. Wings come out, but much smaller."
Perhaps the divinity had to temper the mortal mana slowly, otherwise it might crack. He really had no idea beyond it being how things were.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 4:07 am
"Makes sense." Alva replied, her thoughts close to his own, she couldn't imagine that a mortal body could withstand a full transformation to the kind of god that he was now. "Thank you Ankou." She was appreciative of him putting up with her questions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 12:51 pm
Well, hopefully that helped a bit. He didn't bother shifting back right away, rather something caught his attention. "Here we are. Up ahead." He gestured to the large tree in the distance. It dwarfed the trees that surrounded it, and there was a large opening right though the trunk.
Hopefully large open spaces didn't bother Alva too much, because he knew from experience that she was about to start feeling very, very, very small. It still got to him sometimes, to be honest.
"Shall we ?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 12:14 pm
Alva looked up at the tree as they approached, it was certainly big, much bigger than the others and not a species she could put her finger on. Then again she only knew the ones from her homeland, and then again only her region. As they got closer to it she realised it was even bigger than she had first thought, only it was hard to explain it, how could it be bigger than the others and yet she only just noticed it? She looked to Ankou and nodded.
"Yes, after you." She grinned.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:13 am
And then he led her inside, though that opening, and it was then that he let the shapeshifting fade away, each of his feathers igniting to a brilliant cyan in order to allow them to see where they were going. Even then the ceiling, so to speak, could not be seen. The sides around them were mere shadows dancing to the side of their awareness. They were but tiny ants crawling along inside a great tree's paths, the only sound their breathing and the errais' hooves clacking against the wood as he followed. It got to him every time, honestly, as if he forgot the complete, true vastness of the world tree in between trips.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 12:28 pm
Alva was shocked into silence, truely shocked. She was used to the wide open wilds of the boarderlands, miles and miles of nothing but fields. This was completely different, they were inside, actually inside a tree, a TREE! Yet she could not see the walls and the darkness stretched out in front of them.
Ankou's wings gave out a glow but it did nothing to help the darkness. It looked never ending.
"Amazing." Valyrmora was the one that spoke. "I remember the world tree, but I had forgotten how vast it is." Her voice was a whisper, as though anything louder would scare the illusion.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Jan 25, 2014 7:13 pm
"It still hits me every time I come here." Ankou admitted. Not as much as he had the first time, but he still felt infinitely small even now. It had been worse the first he and Tian Yue had wandered down this very opening.
"We have quite a fair bit to go along in this branch." Because it was exactly what this was. They were crawling along within one of Yggdrassil' enormous branches, one of the only thing tethering the world they had come from to the rest of all that existed.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 9:20 am
It seemed never ending, though she knew that was not entirely true, the tree itself was infinite but they had a specific destination in mind and one that Ankou knew. Hopefully that would go some way to helping the journey more direct.
"Was it damaged much in the wake of gehenna?" She asked, though she was thankful not to have seen such destruction she really felt rather out of the loop.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
