[Hot Springs] Silent Reverie [Open]

[Eirissa]

((ooc: I haven’t roleplayed in forever, so I apologize in advance. Just hoping to get back into it and improve with time. If I screwed up anywhere, please don't hesitate to beat me with a stick... ^^;;))

The caves of Zinrah are beautiful, but it’s not a beauty everyone can appreciate. It seems only the Constrictor Dhani can fall in love with the semi-darkness of the caves, a darkness softened by the pale luminescence of glow-stones and soft ketomosss. The Constricor Dhani alone find comfort in the steamy fog that fills the winding passageways or the drippy sounds that echo in the rock chambers. No, the air of mystery that enshrouds the labyrinthine system of caverns is not for everyone, least of all the surface-dwellers who seem overly fond of sunshine and open spaces. They likely wouldn’t survive more than a few days belowground where paths seem to twist on themselves, much like an enormous coiled serpent, and on false turn could end up at a blank wall of stone…or worse.

By far the best feature of the caves, however, is the network of hot springs responsible for the constant, humid warmth that permeates the city. Most of the springs are fairly deep and littered with glow-stones so that the water casts hypnotic blue-white reflections on the cave ceiling, only adding to the relaxing atmosphere. It is for these and a myriad of other reasons that Taness loves the springs and claims one in particular as her favorite. There is nothing like easing into a hot spring after a long, grueling combat training session and letting the aches and pains of the day melt into the hot water.

Which is precisely what she intended to do.

She had been spending quite a lot of time training lately, especially in her human form. She was still getting used to this new form, learning its strengths and its weaknesses, practicing again and again with her training master. After a particularly brutal session, she decided to soak for a while in her favorite spring. Her long, winding body slithered down the familiar path, her dry, cool scales gently scraping against the stone floor. As she turned the final bend, her forked tongue flicked out, testing the air, sensing for others that might have wandered down to her spring. There was nobody.

Gently she slid down into the spring, her heavy body sinking until only her triangular head remained above water. For several moments she did nothing more than bask in the warmth, letting her sore muscles relax.

Much better, she thought, with a languid flick of her tongue. But her muscles were arranged differently in serpent form than they were in human form, she remembered. Perhaps I should soak in my human form as well.

And so she began the change that she had finally mastered less than a year ago. She felt bones shifting, cracking, reforming. She was intensely aware of limbs forming, of scales softening, of teeth shrinking and realigning. There was no pain. In only half a minute, the change was complete, and Taness could almost have passed for a normal, if slightly taller-than-average human. Almost.

In the half-light of the cave, Taness could just make out her broken reflection in the water. What had surprised her most at her first successful change was how soft this new body was. She had felt so vulnerable without her protective scales. What protection could the pale skin of a human offer against a Myrian blade? Months later and she still wasn’t used to this new form. Treading water—an annoying but necessary tactic to stay afloat, she discovered—Taness raised a pale arm out of the water, wondering at the softness of her skin. She lifted her hand to her face, feeling ears, nose, lips…all so different from what she’s used to. Her fingers traveled down her neck, wandering over the vulnerable throat with its gently pulsing vein before tripping over a collarbone on their way to her breasts, belly, hips… She stared into the water at the distorted image of her feet. It had taken her a whole week to learn how to use them properly, and she could still remember her embarrassment as time after time she fell to the ground. Now she watched her moving legs in mild fascination.

She wondered if she was beautiful. By serpent standards, she was on the smallish side, but she felt that the eye-catching pattern of her scales probably compensated for that. The only live humans she’d ever seen were the Myrians she’d run into in her youth. Their skin was dark, she realized, glancing down at her own milky skin, her lips twitching into a small frown. As for the dead human sacrifices she’d seen...their skin was usually tinged blue from the suffocating constrictor embrace that preceded their deaths.

There really was something beautiful about the sacrifices. Perhaps it was the exquisite agony on their faces, the way their eyes rolled back in their heads and their anguished moans echoed through the temple. Taness knew that, in spite of their protests, they were honored to be sacrificed to Siku. Who wouldn’t be?

Lost in her silent musings, the constrictor basked in the warm water in her strange new form, oblivious to the passage of time.

[Ashivirsthargon]

Sthargon's scales rasped softly over the stone floors surrounding the network of hot springs. Some of the stone had been worked with careful craftsmanship, while other portions had been left in their natural state depending on the desires and time of the Dhani who frequented the location. For his part, Sthargon did not have much of an eye for art, nor was he much of a frequent patron of the Springs. Both pursuits seemed somewhat indulgent to him, and indulgence was an opiate to be partaken of with care. Not only was there an enemy on the outside constantly hovering at the borders, but even within the walls of Zinrah - perhaps especially within the walls of Zinrah - one could not allow one's defenses to drop.

But for all his dour views on life in general, Sthargon was also a Dhani, and although he was wary of indulgence, he was not unmoved by it. Perhaps this is why he made a rare trip to the Springs. His muscles were as taut as bowstrings from the previous day's wrestling, and bruises ran the length of his ribs where his own technique failed him. He still had so much to learn. The thought galled him, somewhat, but better to gather his strength in patient slowness over time than to burn himself out foolishly challenging those far more skilled than himself or trying to develop advanced techniques while he still lacked some proficiency in the basics.

As usual, he looked for a spot where he might go undisturbed by his fellow Dhani, and it was during this search that he saw a human form draped in wet, long tresses of brown hair bathing in one of the springs. Her scent clearly marked her as Dhani, but he did not need the confirmation to know who this was.

He knew Eirissa, of course. The numbers of their race and relatively close proximity meant everyone knew everyone else to some extent. He had seen her more often than many females, however. She was an enigma - a female warrior - and he had seen her train often.

He had mixed feelings about this. It was not because a female could not be a good warrior. He knew this was not the case. What few females took up the ways of the warrior as a regular pursuit were just as effective as males of equal experience. They tended to be smaller, but the compensations of speed and flexibility often gave them an edge over their bulkier, male training partners.

No, his misgivings came more from the role of the female. Females were the future of the race. One male and many females could revitalize the Dhani numbers, but the same could not be said for one female and many males. He cared little about the ruling powers wielded by the matriarchs of the race, but the ability to produce soldiers... in his own way, Sthargon felt the women of the race were too valuable to place into the chaos of battle.

At the same time, he could not help but feel a grudging respect for Eirissa. She was clearly in defiance of societal expectations for her gender, and the thought of how irritated her family and the priestess caste must be with her made him smile, involuntarily. She trained hard, too, and was reasonably skilled for her level of fighting experience. Like as not, she had sought the Hot Springs for the same reasons he had.

He realized he had been standing in the same spot for several minutes, now, while this internal dialogue had played out. He slithered further out toward the far reaches of the cavern, where he would neither disturb nor be disturbed.

[Lirilazula]

At times, the hot springs were unacceptably crowded. Time of year or time of day contributed to just how much calm and isolation one could expect on a visit. As the evening deepened, more and more Dhani would slither in, and eventually any hope of privacy or silence would be extinguished. That was why Lazula and Sylthea chose the afternoon, when it was quietest.

As the pair arrived, Lazula noted the cavern's relative emptiness. There was someone lazing toward a back corner, mostly hidden by shadow and steam, and there was Taness. Lazula's eyes passed over both figures with little concern and even less interest.

Her sister glided along beside her, to the water's edge, and dropped in. As a snake, Sylthea was thin, tiny, and an unremarkable color, much like the mouse brown of her hair in human form. Inch by inch, she uncoiled over the lip of stone, until she was completely submerged within the water's eerie glow.

As Lazula followed suit, she studied her sister's movements through the water. The girl was puny and sickly, and moved easiest beneath the water, so unlike the pained and labored way she slithered or even walked on dry ground. Their daily visits to the hot springs were due to Lazula's insistence: she knew of the healing properties; the way the warmth could cleanse the body's impurities and inspire the blood to flow more smoothly. If there was nothing else she could do to improve Sylthea's condition, there was, at least, this.

Lazula felt the slick brush of scale against scale as Sylthea twined about her tail, deep within the water. It was a playful dance. She must feel well today, Lazula realized.

She herself, though, felt entirely drained. As she let her head loll back onto warm, smooth stone, she tried to rid it completely of thought. There was far too much to do and to consider, and peace like this was rare. There needed to be no thoughts of students, of priesthood duties, of aggravating older sisters or any of the conglomeration of other emotions and situations that tugged her one way or the other.

Her arms spread, floated on the rolling surface. Thick mist curled upward, and spread dewy heat across her cheeks. What she needed was quiet, darkness, and a few moments of uninterrupted solitude.

[Eirissa]

Taness instinctively tensed at the familiar sound of scales rasping against well-worn stone, and she breathed deeply to capture the intruder's scent. She recognized it almost immediately.

"Sthargon," she said out loud, her voice cold and distant as she acknowledged his presence. Sthargon's disapproving views on female warriors were well known, and Taness could imagine how her life path probably frustrated him.

But Sthargon was not the only one. Taness had started out as a neophyte dancer at Siku's temple. She was skilled, but still learning, when one day she realized that much of the coordination, strength, and agility that was so crucial in dance was equally useful in combat. And so began her life as a female warrior-in-training.

The first to voice their disapproval had been, of course, the priestesses. After all, they had lost a novice temple dancer. They had insisted that it was Siku's will that Taness serve as a dancer and, eventually, a priestess. Taness knew otherwise. She had felt in her heart that Siku wanted her to fight, wanted her to take revenge on the Myrian filth that plagued her nest and had left their mark on her flesh. Who was Taness to disagree with divine will? And what greater honor than to protect and defend Siku's people?

"What brings you to the springs?" Her halting human speech echoed softly through the chamber. She was genuinely curious; Sthargon was not known for frequent hot spring visits.

Just as she had uttered the question, she sensed others arriving at the spring. Lazula, she recognized, and Sylthea. Taness did not even bother acknowledging them. There was no point. Lazula was a devout priestess, after all, and Taness had succeeded in offending a great many priestesses with her unconventional choice. While the young constrictor did not know Lazula's personal opinion on the matter, it was highly likely that she agreed with the rest and disapproved of Taness's decision. There was no sense in adding salt to the wound, so she turned her attention back to Sthargon, still curious.

(ooc: So I lied like a rug when I said I'd post this yesterday. Mother and I were having a civilized discussion--read: "we were at each other's throats"--about rent and so on and so forth, and I completely forgot. As a result, ended up being shorter than I wanted. Sorry!)

[Ashivirsthargon]

Sthargon did not answer Taness right away, but instead held his fist near his head and softly rebounded it rhythmically off the cavern wall, as if pondering what to tell her. He wasn't particularly looking for conversation and considered very strongly simply peeling himself away from the stone and finding another cavern.

He was about to turn away when Lazula entered along with Sylthea. His current form made sneering awkward, so he partially opened his mouth to display a bit of fang. Sylthea was Zinrah's weakness wrapped in flesh and bone. He preferred not to be confronted with her existence. He knew better than to insult her, directly. Her thrice-accursed priestess guardian would see that he suffered in a hundred, little ways if he did. Still, the day would come when the Queen's tolerance for this folly of Lazula's must surely run out, and he would not be sorry to see it.

"Ssssssalamanderss, ssaahh," he said, turning back to Taness, adding a little extra emphasis to the beginning of the word for effect. "I have disscovered that the Bathsss are too populated with sssalamanderss. Yesss. Normally, I would just kill the thingss off, but I am tired and not in the mood. Perhapss I should just find a cavern somewhat less populated. I do not ssseem to be relaxing."

[Lirilazula]

Taness's declaration vibrated through Lazula's thoughts like a gong. Her jaw tightened, and she lifted her head to blink through the haze.

It wasn't that the voices were particularly loud, but in the small, dark cavern, every sound and movement seemed to echo a hundredfold. Even whispers could grate on a person's nerves, in a place like this. The voices of Taness and Sthargon prickled into an ache behind her eyes, and made her groan.

As if on cue, Sylthea's head fluttered up through the water, and her tongue teased out to taste the air. "Sssaahhhhh," she hissed, the sound a flawless repetition of Sthargon's voice. No doubt she had heard him make the sound many times, and so it was her way of recognizing - even acknowledging - him. Unable, or unwilling, to speak, she often settled for impersonations to identify others, and did so with the demeanor of a pixie. She was small, and she was mischievous.

"Quiet," Lazula warned. And though she whispered, she knew her command would resound through the chamber and be heard by the others, as well. So, rolling her eyes, she slid further into the water, as if resigned to the disturbances. "And the rest of you, too. Why must the hot springs be a place of idle chatter and gossip? For the love of Siku..."

[Masiraphydeana]

If she could avoid it, Phydeana never used the main entrance of any of the locations in Zinrah. The stares when she walked into a room were never as bad as she imagined them to be, but she'd rather not take a chance and if there was any small alternate passage which she could fit through, she'd prefer that.

The Hot Springs had been a place where her mother had taken Phydeana since she was very young and she had always liked the warm baths, and the foggy environment. When she was younger, she used to play hide and seek with her siblings, but that would be silly to do now they'd all matured. She fondly remembered those days though, when it was still considered 'normal' to play hiding games. If it wasn't for those times, she would never had learned to be invisible so well.

Concealed behind a misty curtain, she could secretly practice her transformation. The warm water relaxed her muscles, making it a little easier to change shape, although it still took her way longer than it should. But, out of the reach of the mocking comments of her peers she usually was more patient to do her exercises.

The narrow passage she often used was situated at the back end of the springs. The baths that lay at that edge were coarse and rougher than the ones near the entrance and often only used during the really busy hours. So when Phydeana decided to pay the spa a secret visit, she quietly slid in through her 'back entrance'. Inside, she dived into the soothing water of a large pool, head first, followed by her long tail. Once she surfaced, she heard voices in the distance, but far enough away for her not to be able to understand what was said. And she didn't really care either.

Exercise, that's what she came here to do. Not her favorite pastime, but if she ever wanted to successfully transform into a human appearance, it was necessary. Turned to her back, she started the first phase, from Snake to Dhani. A measly 30 seconds, this she had mastered a while ago and she was still getting better at it, which gave her some confidence in regard to the second phase. She looked at her reflection in one of the dark black stones at the edge of the pool, shimmering from the wetness. Her shoulders, arms and hands kept amazing her most. How could these evolve from her snake form?

With one hand she brushed her hair from her face. One of the things she hated about her Dhani form, was this. She knew humans considered long hair pretty and therefore she didn't want to cut it, but it was very unpractical, especially when wet. It stuck to her skin and often hampered her clear sight. She looked around the cavern, where the fog seemed reduced compared to when she came in, when her eye fell on... you gotta be kidding me she hissed.

A shiver went down her spine when she realized she was not alone. On the other edge of the extended pool, she could see Sthargon soaking in the warm water. How long has he been bathing over there? she wondered. Has he spotted me? Phydeana, even though she was taught to feel superior over her male congener, rather avoided Sthargon when she had the chance. His reputation was dubious to say the least and with his strength and skillfulness he could easily floor her, even if that was not considered acceptable within the Dhani community.

She contemplated leaving quietly, though that meant she had to transform back into her snake form to be able to fit through the narrow passage and if he hadn't already noticed her, that might give her away. And besides, she came here to practice her human form. Annoyance welled up inside of her. She didn't feel like letting herself be driven away again. The cavern was big enough for the both of them. And if he didn't like her presence, he could leave himself.

[Nissarahsikar]

Sikar entered the spring through one of the many tunnels, that one could only travel through in snake form. He was extremely agitated from his itching scales. Sikar was shedding his skin, he had grown almost a foot since the last time he molted. The hot springs help calm the irritation he was feeling, and he hoped he could snack on some salamanders as well. Sikar gazed upon the hot spring, it was warm inside the chamber. He couldn't help but stare at the blue water full of glow stones illuminating the dim chamber, but he needed to try and get the skin off his scales. Sikar slide himself in-between to boulders that were close enough together for him to rub against, and as he passed through the opening the rocks took of some of the old skin. Sikar immediately began to feel relief, "sssssssssssssssssssaaaaaaa," he hisssed in enjoyment. He had noticed the other Dhani in the chamber but was trying to stay hidden in the rocks were he was rubbing of the skin. He hadn't yet gained his Dhani form and couldn't wait till he did. Sikar had a little bit of envy of those who did.

Sikar coiled himself around one of the boulders, just relaxing in the heat of the springs. He had molted his old flesh, so his scales gleamed in the light. He was only 23 years old and quite large for a snakeling. His yellow eyes shown as well so it was hard for him to be stealthy, besides the fact he was clumsy. "ssssssssssssoooooooo niccccccce," he thought to himself just observing his surroundings.

[Nissarahsikar]

Sikar had laid on the boulder for quite some time. He had dozed off, and been sleeping for a few hours.

Suddenly there was a change in the air and Sikar could sense it. He raised his head and could see a salamander in front of him. It hadn't noticed Sikar sitting on the rock in front of him. "Thisssssss is going to be an easy meal," he thought to himself. Sikar reared his head back about to strike at the salamander. He lunged forward, opening his mouth exposing his razor sharp teeth, he grabbed the salamander and chopped down on it till he was sure it was dead. He swallowed it with ease, but wasn't satisfied. "Hmmmmmm not what I wasssss hoping for, but a good snack." He slincked back through a tunnel leaving the hot springs.