Loss Of A Loved One
Kemeneth, soft green scales appearing almost black in the weak light of this planet's distant sun, fought herself through another chilly gale, relentless in its whipping of her face. Shivers. A sensation of foolishness drifted almost ominously through her mind. If the chill reached her heart, what use would her heroics be then? What of the cold had seeped into her was making her dangerously drowsy. By now nearly staggering across the dry, ice-cold desert surface, she was wondering if she was already halfway to the other entrance to the tunnel system, or if it made sense to turn around and wait for the wind to settle, or her brethren to clear the collapsed tunnel.
It was a moment of intolerable loneliness, with the distance to those linked to her tangible - and Ybbeleth's state a painful jab to the side of her skull, intrusive, demanding. Her mother couldn't help the effect, but Kemeneth felt the bitter taste of hatred. Yet she had no doubt it, and the rest of her irrationalities, would fade with the cold.
The glint of something moister than the world around her caught her attention. The Seal. Feeling a new fire ignite deep inside her, the dragoness, feeble as she was, hastened forward on all fours, pushing talons against a hard, crusted surface - the freeze splintered and broke, and she sank into the moistness of the organic material, as though willingly entering a moor. Weight parting the mass, weak light appeared in lower layers, before the quicksand pulled her in to close in own trembles behind her, shielding the whole civilisation from the inhospitable world.
Even as the claustrophobic moment stretched onwards, the sticky substance smothering her, warmth seeped inwards from the living tissue, pulsing against her to push her from atmosphere to atmosphere... and then she fell into dim, threateningly flickering illumination of the cut off cavern, and the sound of her mother's voice, wailing shallowly.
Bones aching from the cold and wind, joints complaining at their use, Kemeneth breathed shallowly, the warm air stinging in her lungs. Fighting desperately out of the psychological and actual paralysis, her head rolled up and to the side to glance towards Ybbeleth.
Terrifyingly, the older dragoness was only visible by head, neck, and one thin forearm, the rest covered by rubble and boulders. But she was breathing, at least, even if it was laboured, so her lungs were still functioning. The pain throbbed fiercely in Kemeneth's skull, stabbing into her left temple as though someone had pushed a dagger into her head and was slowly turning it in gleeful sadism.
The warmth still a painful prickle through her body, Kemeneth's worry finally broke out through the cage she had kept it in, and large waves of it cleared her mind of everything else... "Ybbele!" Gasps, from the one who sought to help. Finally, proper motion... and the distance to her mother was only a few metres at most. Time to put an end to this headache. Time to help.
Kemeneth drags herself forwards, moving on shaky legs and as she reaches the older dragoness she knows that she has no time to waste and so starts to weakly tug at the rubble covering the other dragoness, hopefully sending some of the smaller chunks to cascade to the floor out of the way. Her eyes drift closed as she works, her lungs hurting from the warm air and sudden swift exercise.
Kemeneth gasps for breath."I will get you out of here.." she pants, struggling with a larger stone, inwardly not letting herself think of what she would do if she failed in her attempt.
Ybbeleth seems barely responsive - dull eyes glance at her child, though a weak smile tugs at those reptilian lips at the familiarity of the face looking down at her, and fingers attempt to stretch out in recognition. The task seems nigh impossible. Each shift of the larger rocks grinds the dagger deeper, the stab unexpected regardless how much Kemeneth attempts to brace. A weak, trembling groan from the trapped one. What was keeping the others? Or was the collapsed section so deep that despite their combined efforts, they had yet to reach Ybbeleth's location?
Kemeneth whines in pain, lowering her head as she keeps struggling with the rubble, her eyes semi-opening. She leans for the barest fraction of a second against the fingers, tears filling her eyes before she put even more effort into shifting the rocks. Her shape continually shivers now, breathy gasps slipping out of her mouth as she moves; trying to free her mother. Inwardly she cursed, hoping that others would arrive soon.
Ybbeleth's glance slips away from Kemeneth, drifting lazily elsewhere, her breath regular, if slow. No doubt she wishes the pain was just slightly worse and had knocked her unconscious - if not for her own sake, then for Sidoreth, Kemeneth and her siblings, the pain welling in their skulls like water spilling out of a dam. It was her duty to at least stay alive and keep that dam from breaking.
Kemeneth quivers, struggling with one of the biggest rocks, tugging on it, blunting her claws and not noticing silent tears sliding down her face. Her neck arches as she tries to use her head to shift the rock and when it does move it takes a rather sudden - and painful movement to stop others falling to join it."Everything... will be okay..." she gasps, lowly, her voice cracking.
A small part of Kemeneth's mind idly marvels at her coping, subjected to this double strain. Mentally assaulted by the pain of her mother, and physical weakness trying to grapple a hold of boulders several times her own weight, muscles straining, there is little of Kemeneth left without an ache. Ybbeleth's claws curl into the sandy ground, breath snorting away thin layers each breath. As Kemeneth shifts the main boulder, the otherwise so passive dragoness howls, and the hideous sound of cracking bones fills the cavern, several ribs crushed against the ground, and hip chipping further. Green scales matted by dust and dirt surface from under the shifted rocks.
Kemeneth cringes thensinkins her hinds claws into the ground, pressing her head and neck gently against her mother, trying to be soothign while she shifts smaller stones, the tears flowing faster."You will get out of here..." she hisses between gasps.
Without warning, the tone of another howl interlinks with hot pain exploding through Kemeneth's skull, the young dragon's claws chipping as fingers reflexively curl in anguish, and the light seems to flare up to blind her for the eternity of half a second - before all turns to a total and blissful blackness.
For a long while, Kemeneth is alone. Or rather, the thinking fraction of Kemeneth, that which sits in the blackness, wondering how so many things could go wrong simultaneously. Numbed. But loneliness, just to escape pain? Hesitation. Maybe if she wandered through this darkness long enough, she would run into her brethren and relink. Maybe if- but wait. She has no body here. She barely even has a mind.
Darkness, still, and that reluctance. The memory of the pain is stronger than the deep hate of being alone, the insecurity. Strange. Was it always like this, being unconscious? The word implied a complete lack of thought - like a dreamless sleep. Maybe she wasn't thinking. Maybe she was making this all up retrospectively, waking up? Hard to say.
Finally, sensations rushed back in on her. Rumbling sounds gained edges and tone, like a distant waterfall dispersing to allow the song of birds to sound. Colour bleeds into the blackness. The warmth of the familial ties slowly find her and embrace her. Ghastly, though, was the steadily strengthening awareness of the gaping hole in their midst, the incomplete picture deeply disturbing well beyond its implication, like a devouring ghoul now nested within her chest, ready to spread whenever it pleased. As though a bit of the coldness of this chunk of ice had permanently become ingrained in her heart, a shard of ice that, if moved, would cut her heart open so she would bleed to death.
"...mene," Sidoreth's tone was one of worry, intermingled with the hint of a similar confusion, and the tone of struggle. Awareness, slowly. The light that had flickered earlier was now extinguished, with a new, brighter beacon newly set into the opposite wall. Dust stung against her nostrils. A thin tunnel bottlenecked between this smallest part of the network and the rest of the underground maze. Sidoreth crouched beside her, left wing draped carefully across her shape, the thin membrane mimicking a blanket.
Kemeneth wails, lowly, it an empty hollow sound, coming straight from her aching heart. Tears cascade down her face and she sinsk her claws into the floor. "I couldn't save her..." she sobs, her voice cracking. "I tried... and I failed. I..." she closes her eyes again, leaning against her father, her shape shuddering."I..." she attempts to speak but dissolves into tears again.
Trembling fingers find Kemeneth's antennae, carressing them to soothe. Her words were the obvious, spoken aloud. Sidoreth didn't feel the urge to articulate what the mindlinks already laid out before them. He hadn't even found the courage to glance upon Ybbeleth's corpse longer than had been necessary. Bitterness marked his expression. But there was no blame.
Nawlath, oldest of her siblings, meanwhile, broke stare from the dead body. A strange, unusual emotion seemed to stab out from him, green hide rippling as he approached Kemeneth and Sidoreth on all fours. Possibly, though, she wasn't aware of him until he spoke. "All of this would never have happened if we hadn't left Avishraa." The voice was full of hurt and contempt.
The name came unexpectedly. Avishraa? She didn't even have any memories of it, though she was allegedly born there, unlike Atiyath. Her only chance of knowing anything about it were via stories that were never told. But if it truly had been so glorious, why was there always this shameful silence?
Sidoreth's tone was one of tiredness, laced with the slightest tremble: "Not now." - Nawlath seemed oblivious to the request. "Who ever heard of dragons living in caves?" An astonishingly fierce growl leapt from his throat. "And now you're going to say 'None of us could see this coming'. Caves, father!" He flexed his wings with a ferocity that whirled up dust.
Sidoreth, gaze still inspecting Kemeneth, suffered his verbal assault without complaint, instead continuing to carressing his daughter to soothe her pain. But he was listening, of course, and proved it as he finally spoke, calmly, but the torture of the subject clear in his voice: "Avishraa is probably a dead cluster of rocks by now." But his tone proved what he truly wanted to say was 'I didn't make this choice lightly'.
Kemeneth shivers, her eyes remaining closed. She doesn't speak now, slowly calming as she is stroked. As Nawlath speaks she cringes, lowering her head further till her chin is pressed against the ground but she still doesn't speak though she does whimper, cringing a little against Sidoreth. As her brother growls she opens her eyes but remains silent, slowly calming further.
Protest welled within Nawlath. "You can't run away from dea-" - "Enough," Sidoreth closed his eyes as he spoke the firm word, though he was still quiet, worn from the loss of his love. "I've no wish to reiterate any of this." - It seemed bizarre, but Nawlath's shape sunk, shoulders folding forwards, and the narrow snout pointing downwards in some variant of shame and sorrow.
Glance subtly crossing Kemeneth and her father, the brother rose to stand, and slowly began to slink out of the room, still curved in defeat - not by his father, but by a larger force, the destructive swing of fate's hammer. To Kemeneth, it was as though she could feel her brother's heart hammering in his chest, wanting to burst out. And just as his left paw settled on one of the uncleared rocks, his shape buckled and he fell, pitiful sound escaping his snout as he writhed from emotional pain in the dirt, weeping, claws raking across hard surfaces as though in vain seeking something warm to hold onto. And his whimpers held on, shattering the last illusion Kemeneth had had that this was her strongest brother. Or perhaps he was, nonetheless crushed like all of them by the magnitude of their loss, synapses ground to fine dust.
Kemeneth remains silent, shivering a little but she does stretch a little towards her older brother, gently nudging at his shape before she is still again. As he rises to his feet she whines a soft note, not actually saying anything, but reaching out to him as much as she can. As he falls, she yips, surging to her paws and stretching towards him before she sags, her legs trembling.
And with the whimpers softening, sadness descends upon the room, and the loneliness of silence. And slowly, the remaining warmth from Ybbeleth dissipates, turning the lone bubble of warmth dug into this desert planet just a slight bit colder.