Awakening A Beast (II)
Kanti shivers, but doesn't say a word, her head lowering; her neck arching because her head is held so low. "I hope that they are, then..." she whispers. She doesn't add to that though, for fear she would be killed if she were of no further use to him... not that she liked the thought of her protecting him, the thought made an angry roar start at the back of her mind but she quickly subdued it.
Shahrivrath, meanwhile, has turned his attention back to the darkened citadel. He seems to have less of an issue with the dark than Kanti is having. Silently, barely making a sound in his movements, the Hzataalar Kaea moves away from Kanti, and down the corridor, his outlines quickly becoming nearly indistinguishable in the dark, Kanti's eyes having trouble tracking them. But he seems to be looking for something.
Kanti looks up and round, rising almost silently to her paws, blinking slowly as she tried to peer through the darkness. Stretching stffened joints she whined a note before she falls silent again. "What are you... hunting for...?" she asked softly.
"The library," Shahrivrath says, simply, halting abruptly after he completes his sentence fragment. "You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you?" he asks the dragoness.
Kanti shivers some before forcing herself into stillness. "No I... don't..." She looks away then, scuffling a bit as she moved away from where she had been. "I... I'm sorry..." she finally added.
"No worries." Barely audible, the sound of Shahrivrath's claws touching the citadel's ground can be heard, softening. Maybe Kanti should ask for a light. After all, Shahrivrath had no problems creating one before.
Kanti licks at her lips, swallowing almost dryly. "Uhm... could we... have some light... please... milord...?" The last was almost inaudible, the lithe dragoness trembling a bit.
Again, Shahrivrath pauses, this time so abruptly that the momentum from his walk knocks the tip of his tail against the wall in a soft, audible thud. He glances back at Kanti, thoughtful. Then, his left hand raises, and he twirls his fingers. Light floods into the bent corridor. "Come along," he coaxes moments later, his snout tilted sideways, and a soft smile tugging at his lips.
Kanti flinches a little as she edges forwards on all four paws, purring very softly as the Hzataalar Kaea made light. Blushing a bit, she bounded after him. "Yes milord," she whispered.
Of course, the light had also cast light on the sagged and folded shape of Vimal, red pooling under him, and a round, red and white speckled wound near his spine. Shahrivrath turns and continues to walk down the corridor. Oddly, there seems to be a slight sway to his walk, as though he were, perhaps, not entirely awake.
Kanti passes the body, shivering now and bounding a little faster after the larger dragon. Apart from Shahrivrath, Kanti was alone; she had no-one else. Very slow tears wound down her face though she didn't make a sound. "Are you... okay, milord...?" she questioned.
Huffing a breath, Shahrivrath glances back at Kanti. "This place doesn't like me," he explains, clearly keeping said explanation as simple as possible. "It shuffles my thoughts - it tries to confuse me. So I have a headache."
Kanti twitches a little then nods a bit. "I see..." she trails off and looks around, chewing on her lower lip, almost nervously. She seems to cringe as she passes him, her shape lower to the floor. "May I have a try, milord... I... it migth not confuse me..." she shivers a little.
Shahrivrath's gaze seems to ask 'A try at what?', but the words do not form. Instead, he inclines his head. "Just because I have a headache does not mean I can't look for the library, Kanti." He smiles. "Nonetheless, you're considerate to ask. You're invited to help, of course."
Kanti blushes then nods, looking around a bit, seeming uncertain as to which way to go. She paused then, rising slightly off her front paws her nostrils flaring, inwardly wondering if she could smell the library.
They walk for a while longer, the strange tension between the two dragons not ebbing any. Fortunately, Kanti's mind is soon confronted by something else to focus on, as Shahrivrath discovers the library - light scattering from the dust on corridors and books, diffuse, the area looks almost alien. Softest pawprints left in the dust, Shahrivrath enters the library - a vast hall full of books, though without cupboard rows. The books are set into cupboards by the wall - the rest of the room is open space. It's thin and long by design. "Excellent," Shahrivrath whispers, his eyes narrowing slightly as be begins to inspect book titles. To Kanti, the books seem to be written without sense - the words just seem to be a random string of letters. They're none she recognises.
Kanti pauses by the door, crouched in the dust, awed by the amount of books. She is a little bothered that they seem to be in jargon but that soon passes, her feeling smaller than she ever had before and like she was trespassing... which in a way she was. "What... are you..." she pauses, cowering as her low voice seems to echo. "May I ask what you are looking for milord...?" she whispers, softly.
"Signs," he dismisses her question with the cryptic answer. Tailtip swaying near Kanti's muzzle, he progresses along the corridor of books without haste. His clear blue eyes have stopped inspecting every book they're passing. "This is the Citadel of Life," he says aloud, feeling generous with his thoughts. "The Davir Sria are creatures of order. Fortunately for us, this means their library is neatly sorted."
Kanti ducks then and quite literally scoots along the dusty floor after him, listening intently. "I see." she whispers, almost reverently. "And you will find any and... destroy them..." she pauses then, inwardly hoping that the 'vermin' as the taller dragon called them were either far away or dead. Or maybe even both.
"Quite," Shahrivrath acknowledges, without any change of tone. A few steps further, he stops gradually, and turns to scrutinise the books to his right. The tip of his snout moves close to the row of books he's seemingly taken interest in. Gaze drifting upwards to the ceiling as not to distract, he smells the books, nostrils twitching.
Kanti crouches beside him, close enough to almost touch, her muzzle buried in her forepaws. Inwardly she was glad that she was alive but her inner turmoil stemmed from how long or rather how much longer would she live for. The thougth made her tremble and she edged a little away from the taller and male dragon, her head tilting as she peered at the books, seemingly interested even though she couldn't understand them.
A sudden growl surfaces from Shahrivrath, and his eyes narrow. A moment later, his right paw snaps up to a book - it's ever so slightly out of line of the others, half a centimeter pulled out of its resting position... he yanks it out. "They've fled," he observes, eyes turning to half-moon shapes as his lower eyelid pulled up in glare.
Kanti cringes, a good distance away by now. "I... see..." she trails off, shivering, backing away slightly. "I am not to know milord... but maybe they have all died in whatever place they fled to...?" She peered around the edge of a bookcase, her head tilted.
Shahrivrath lets the book fall to the floor, cover opening. The first page of the book shimmers in strange colours. Removing his paws from the cupboard in slow motion, he turns to look at Kanti. "Only one way to find out," he gestures.
Kanti cowers a little then whimpers, shifting forwards towards him in a swift flurry of feet and feathers. It seems like she just remembered how powerful he was, and abandoned any ideas she had... at least for now. She stares down at the book then, wordlessly and very softly cheeping in wariness.
Shahrivrath watches Kanti, before smiling teethily. "Just touch the page, Kanti," he explains, thinking she's never heard of the linking books of the brotherhoods. A moment later, he adds: "Though you can wait a moment if you like, I'd rather not leave without some of the knowledge in these halls..." he trails off, before closing his eyes and falling silent, frozen like some statue, concentrating, the slight pulse of his neck the only thing showing that he's alive.
Kanti blinks then whispers: "Where will it take us...?" she asks. She shudders a bit then, a forepaw reaching for the page. She was shaking a little though, daunted - and not only by his teeth.
But Shahrivrath does not respond. At least, not immediately. When he finally opens his eyes, his gaze only slowly drifts back down to Kanti - the appearance he'd had since earlier, that she'd noticed from the point her head started to clear, seems to have intensified. He looks worn, struggling against some invisible force. Still, he tries to smile, and with a gesture of his left paw flicks the book shut again. "Tel'kael," he observes the hand-written scrawl across the cover. A note of a low chuckle, barely audible, escapes him as a smirk tugs at his lips.
Kanti cringes, her forepaw brushing across the cover of the book. She shivered then, her eyes closing a whimper slipping from her mouth. "Will we ever return here...?" she asks.
As Kanti brushes the cover, Shahrivrath's paw, still resting on the same, extends in motions like seeking tendrils to her paw. "Fate will decide," he says, simply, seizing her hand in a strange grip between gentleness and firmness, raising it off the page, sliding his right hand under the cover, palm up, and nudging it open slowly. "There's nothing to fear," he assures, though his grin is still teethy. And in a breathy whisper, leant forward, he adds: "Just let go." Finishing the three words, he pushes her paw down, spreading it out on the page.
Kanti whines as her hand is gripped then spread before she ducks a little. "Let go of what...?" she does obey though, or to the best she can.
Without warning, warmth seeps through Kanti, at first almost pleasant, like a mother's embrace, then increasingly uncomfortable, invasive, though never hot. It's as though her mind is being rearranged slowly but surely, warped away from what she used to be. And as she next finds the courage to perceive, the world has vanished, and she has vanished, instead bodiless, like a gas, nowhere and everywhere... before a whirlpool effect tugs at her, and she feels like she's falling, tumbling, twirling with no shape to enable her to grip anything to stop it, further, spiralling, dizzying, terrifying, as though being consumed - and then, suddenly, the ground does meet up with her side, a soft impact, but the hardness of the ice-cold floor is a shock to her system. A physical object.
Kanti shuddered and half sobbed, falling quiet, unable to make any sound, as she fell and tumbled. Finally, she hit the ground, it eliciting a soft squeal, then a blink. She looks rather bemusedly up at the sky.
It takes only the slightest crane of the neck to see the sun in the sky, even less brilliant than that of dying Avishraa's, that sun that Shahrivrath never got to see, that he assumed still shone in its former glory. And the chilly wind is quick to gnaw at the outer layers of Kanti's skin, but the warmth in her takes its time to dissipate, giving her the impression of a cool world, not yet fully registering the absolute cold of this inhospitable world.
Without a sound, Shahrivrath comes into existence beside her, in an odd lack of effect, as though he had always been there.
Kanti stares at the taller dragon then before she cringes, her claws scraping the ground, trying to sink into it. The little dragoness trembles then, shuddering hard at the chill.
For a moment, he regards the world with similar disorientation. Then, Shahrivrath's eyes widen, just as the cold begins to break through Kanti's defences... snarling, he curls his left hand into a fist and slams it into the ground. Without warning, a hot wave ripples through Kanti, making her cry out reflexively - but in the same instant, it's passed through her and out of her, and the sky seems to shift dangerously in colour...
Finally, Kanti's mind catches up, watching the purple ripples travel across the half-sphere of the sky. A shield. Shahrivrath's snout is distorted in now-silent snarl as he retrieves his left paw from the ground, uncurling the fingers. The light he had carried in the citadel was now extinguished. His anger, meanwhile, was at himself. Had he read the book, he would have come more prepared than this.
Kanti relaxes as the heat burns through her. She sags a little before she cowers, not looking up now and closing her green eyes. She blinks then as Sharivrath removes his paw before she looks up at the sky, awed.
A quiet, hissed murmur of incomprehensible swearwords passes Shahrivrath's lips, before he begins to stalk across the smooth landscape in his make-shift climate bubble. A ripple runs through him, and his eyes distort in an emotion not befitting of a Hzataalar Kaea - fear. What if they left this world since, and he would never find the book they used to flee? He had brought no pen and paper with him. Linking back to Avishraa without a book to channel the magic would be nearly impossible, even for a Hzataalar Kaea. Perhaps he had been too absorbed in the fight. For Kanti, the fight lay months or years back - for Shahrivrath, it had been minutes ago. The adrenalin still laced his veins, now almost aching.
Kanti trembles a little, bounding after the Hzataalar Kaea, a good bit slower than him before she stopped, sitting back on her haunches and eying the sky. She looked over at the taller dragon and carefully took off, gliding slowly after him. "I need him... or he needs me... or something..." she murmured, not aware she spoke aloud although very lowly.
If Shahrivrath heard her, he makes no indication thereof. And so they continue walking, with Shahrivrath's expression of doubt twitching every once in a while, himself displeased with his impulsive move that had seemed like such a good idea not long ago. Death was no trivial subject to muse over, and it was one thing he was not going to speak about aloud.