In the Heart of the Forest - 30/01/2024 - Calla Prim
Feb 2, 2024 17:26:09 GMT
Andy D and Orianna Èirigh like this
Post by dee on Feb 2, 2024 17:26:09 GMT
Home from Karasuthra. From its twilit forest, from Melrodsa’s temple: to the warmly nacreous glow of the Heart. Both easy on the eye, neither demanding glasses to be observed.
Florian had asked Calla to find his friend. And she’d said yes.
No cost, no caveat.
A readiness to observe more creatures for her increasingly tangible glamour, but no real trade. The shock of it had carried her through Meldrosa’s portal, to the Beastlands, through rituals to the hunter and hunted, and only after Florian’s... there was no other word for it, exultation as Herald, had she parsed the debt she already carried. And built a tower to it. With Archie. Two even.
Why then, was there something yet to be completed? And worse, the feeling of being seen.
It had come from that second ritual. The panthers of the wood. The druid’s patient, gentle gaze.
She had understood something in that moment, and profoundly. The prowl of a creature self-assured, muscular, singular. The snap of jaws ready for the barest hint of stretched out neck. Something hungry and ready to pounce. It had taken no effort to comprehend and weave the ritual required: less than no effort. While Digs was reckoning with the idea of an Archwyrm and its scale, while Toothy and Orianna had laced their fingers in the support of family. Calla had been recognised and welcomed by something that put the lie to her nebbish facade.
The last time she’d met Florian it peeled back her armour. This time, the damage has run deeper.
There is no specific mirror in the Mountain’s Heart, the walls themselves serve reflection upon reflection.
Calla stares at herself, armour already melted away. A base-layer of figure-hugging altweave patterned with a maze of rose and thorn. She looks... odd. Alien to herself almost. Where her friend has inherited green fire in his eyes, hers have turned darker. Without glasses her cavernous pupils are huge, sucking in light through a thin ring of amethyst. Where Florian’s hair has become verdant, iridescent almost, hers has paled metallic. Without glamour her once corn-blonde has gone platinum. While Florian has become more majestic, Orianna more... stellar... Calla’s ears have lengthened, her features sharpened. More and more, she has become something dug up from somewhere lightless. Where once there were cream-coloured flowers on her brow, her hard tipped fingers now find a thin crown of jagged mineral.
She should feel jealousy, maybe, over the intricate and glorious tattoo, the stars falling in her sister’s eyes. The way they wear those changes with pride while hers are hidden. Instead, she straightens out her perpetually cramped shoulders, rolls out her crooked neck, and closes her eyes. The words and gestures that draw flesh and fur into her re-established glamour ripple with predatory ease. In a nearby jar a caterpillar’s cocoon shrivels and shreds. She has turned others into beasts, but never herself.
Her sundown skin turns to midnight.
Her hands, to heavy claws.
Her pupils narrow to razors. Mass shifts from short legs and broad hips to powerful limbs. She falls only to catch herself, takes an inward breath that seems to last forever, and a languid sound rumbles through lungs unfurling to twice the size. A hidden place blooms between and beneath them, and here is the difference between her and Florian. She is achingly hungry. A hunger as if she’d never been fed. But that, at least, is not entirely new.
More than the outward change, her memory delivers his seeking glance, mid-ritual. She now viscerally knows what it is to be seen. If only briefly. Before vanishing back into the night.
And the hunt.
Florian had asked Calla to find his friend. And she’d said yes.
No cost, no caveat.
A readiness to observe more creatures for her increasingly tangible glamour, but no real trade. The shock of it had carried her through Meldrosa’s portal, to the Beastlands, through rituals to the hunter and hunted, and only after Florian’s... there was no other word for it, exultation as Herald, had she parsed the debt she already carried. And built a tower to it. With Archie. Two even.
Why then, was there something yet to be completed? And worse, the feeling of being seen.
It had come from that second ritual. The panthers of the wood. The druid’s patient, gentle gaze.
She had understood something in that moment, and profoundly. The prowl of a creature self-assured, muscular, singular. The snap of jaws ready for the barest hint of stretched out neck. Something hungry and ready to pounce. It had taken no effort to comprehend and weave the ritual required: less than no effort. While Digs was reckoning with the idea of an Archwyrm and its scale, while Toothy and Orianna had laced their fingers in the support of family. Calla had been recognised and welcomed by something that put the lie to her nebbish facade.
The last time she’d met Florian it peeled back her armour. This time, the damage has run deeper.
There is no specific mirror in the Mountain’s Heart, the walls themselves serve reflection upon reflection.
Calla stares at herself, armour already melted away. A base-layer of figure-hugging altweave patterned with a maze of rose and thorn. She looks... odd. Alien to herself almost. Where her friend has inherited green fire in his eyes, hers have turned darker. Without glasses her cavernous pupils are huge, sucking in light through a thin ring of amethyst. Where Florian’s hair has become verdant, iridescent almost, hers has paled metallic. Without glamour her once corn-blonde has gone platinum. While Florian has become more majestic, Orianna more... stellar... Calla’s ears have lengthened, her features sharpened. More and more, she has become something dug up from somewhere lightless. Where once there were cream-coloured flowers on her brow, her hard tipped fingers now find a thin crown of jagged mineral.
She should feel jealousy, maybe, over the intricate and glorious tattoo, the stars falling in her sister’s eyes. The way they wear those changes with pride while hers are hidden. Instead, she straightens out her perpetually cramped shoulders, rolls out her crooked neck, and closes her eyes. The words and gestures that draw flesh and fur into her re-established glamour ripple with predatory ease. In a nearby jar a caterpillar’s cocoon shrivels and shreds. She has turned others into beasts, but never herself.
Her sundown skin turns to midnight.
Her hands, to heavy claws.
Her pupils narrow to razors. Mass shifts from short legs and broad hips to powerful limbs. She falls only to catch herself, takes an inward breath that seems to last forever, and a languid sound rumbles through lungs unfurling to twice the size. A hidden place blooms between and beneath them, and here is the difference between her and Florian. She is achingly hungry. A hunger as if she’d never been fed. But that, at least, is not entirely new.
More than the outward change, her memory delivers his seeking glance, mid-ritual. She now viscerally knows what it is to be seen. If only briefly. Before vanishing back into the night.
And the hunt.