Thick Skin [The Grave of Behemoths]

by **Tinnok** on May 31st, 2014, 1:51 pm

Thick Skin
1st of Spring, 514 A.V.

It had been happening for days, the changing of the foliage, the altitude, the plants. Gradually, but noticeably the trees grew smaller, thick wet jungle giving way to much drier scrublands. She realized it was because she had crested a large mountain. She didn't know much about weather, but she understood that the mountains pulled in rain. The Kandukta Basin sat in a low point surrounded by higher climbs, all of the Summer Monsoons collected there, Zinrah and Taloba on only slightly higher ground to either side of it, but here? This place was on the outside of such mountains, and it showed.

At first Tinnok had assumed that this would mean there would be less life. What she knew of the lands with only sand told her that creatures couldn't survive off of a lack of plants and water, but as she traveled she realized this was far from the case, it was only that the animal, insects, and plants here were used to the lack of hydration. Spiny plants that held all their water within, scorpions, small snakes, tarantulas, they flourished here. Strange small dog-like creatures, and the other day she had even thought she had seen a cat, like a leopard, but without any spots.

She knew she had reached the grave of behemoths, or at least the edges of it, when she saw the massive six tusked skull in her path. Dry grasses grew up within it and around, but there was no mistaking the two primary pairs of tusks with the third, much smaller, but still pronounced, showing themselves as well.

She walked up slowly, her hands passing over bones bleached white by the sun and weather, stroking the rough surface reverently. After all this time away from the hearty jungle where she had grown up, the witch was scared she wouldn't find this place, instead becoming eternally lost or somehow accidentally traveling out of her biome into another region to get picked off by barbarians. She took a moment to clear her mind, both hands resting on two tusks that were easily twice her size, resting her forehead against the forehead of the skull.

"Blessings be to Caiyha, who guided me here, to Syna for lighting the path, to Leth for doing the same, to Oriana..." She had added Oriana's name to her prayers, but she wasn't always sure what to include. ...for if not for her, I would be with child now." She finished. She kept thinking it was not an appropriate prayer, why pray to the Bear Goddess of Mothers for not having a child? But Tinnok was only reminded of Mamoru's cruel eyes, her own fear at what could be forming within her, reading Oriana's story on that great stone tablet, and they fact that she was still alone...a mother to her jungle, which was more than enough responsibility for her.

She raised her head, staring in the two empty sockets of the long dead Tskanna. "And thank you, for showing me I am in the right place. You must have been the biggest bull when you were alive, it is fitting you show others the way to their graves." She smiled, giving a tusk a final pat before striding past it, eager to see what awaited her ahead.

by **Tinnok** on June 3rd, 2014, 7:15 pm

Though she had reached scrublands, trees had still towered over her as she made her way to these Northern lands of Falyndar, it was only their density that decreased as she went, but now…only a few hundred yards past the massive skulls, the world transformed to one of yellow rough grasses dry and rasping with every gust of wind. It was a dry heat that radiated from both the ground and air as Tinnok walked into the grasses that reached up to her hips, her fingertips trailing over their tips, eyes finding strange fat trees placed sporadically around the plains. If she focused on the horizon she could see rib cages and skulls of the Tskanna poking up over the grasses, and in her wonderment at the change of scenery she tripped over the thick leg bone of one skeleton, sending her toppling into a whole other pile of bones roughly, crying out in surprise and pain as she landed in a heap of clattering bones and body parts.

Tinnok took a chime to collect herself, standing up slowly and taking stock of her surroundings. When she was settled she began walking at a much more cautious pace through the tall grass, careful of the many half buried or entirely exposed skeletons she was bound to come across.

It wasn’t long before she was struck by the smell. It was of rotting flesh and muscle certainly. While many of these bones were surely centuries old, some were more recent, she began passing by only half rotted skeletons, and not all were bleached white, but yellow, some crumbled, some old and grey. Crows, vultures, and other carrion feeders circled the sky, and Tinnok held her arms upward towards them. This whole scene was a spectacle of the end of life, but also the beginnings. She paused by a relatively fresh corpse, peering at the writhing fat white maggots in empty eye sockets, beetles scurrying above and below wrinkled blue flesh, and saw signs of other creatures that had taken their meals here, birds and cats, and perhaps even dogs. Flies swarmed around her, perching on her skin and making it tickle, but she let them stay there, feeling the tiny pinpricks of their strange vision fill her head with all sorts of senses that were so hard to translate. Insects were so foreign, driven simply by hunger and mating, a simplified version of all life she supposed, yet the way they translated color, light, feeling, it was all so strange, almost removed from the emotions she could get from a Tskanna or tiger. She enjoyed every sensation, however, so she let them wash over as she walked.

The witch was very aware of the passage of time here, able to see Syna’s passage unmolested by the trees above, but was unhurried at the same time. This whole area was so vast and wonderful, along with the stench of rot came a loamy release of all the nutrients given to the soil. She assumed the brown of the grass meant it was dying, but on the contrary, the whole field was alive and well, feeding on the energy of the deceased Tskanna, the sun and rain. Despite the enormity of death that surrounded the witch then, she was also struck by the rightness of it all. This was one end of the circle, and yet all of it in one. She felt so small here, exposed without the thick foliage and giant trees, and in awe of the strangeness of the place, how the Tskanna collected here to die, somehow were all guided in one way or another to this place. How wonderful it must be to be so in tune with your own body that you knew precisely when your time was. Tinnok idly wondered if that would happen to her some day, and if she would have the ability to trek here to lie with the bones of these great beasts.

A faint trumpet broke her reverie, and Tinnok’s head snapped in the direction of the noise, her feet picking up their pace on slightly as she made her way through the tall grasses. It didn’t take long for her to see a great blue grey side heaving, still with life, and cresting over the waist high grasses. Tinnok leapt over a partially eroded skull and found herself in a trampled clearing, almost devoid of bones, at least on the surface, and in its center a large Tskanna cow, her slightly shorter tusks giving away her gender. Tinnok could see her age in how her skin sagged beneath her eyes, how her skin was more grey than blue, and dead moss clung to her skin in large clumps all over her body. She strode forward, kneeling beside her head and pressing her forehead to the Tskanna’s. A weak trunk wrapped itself slowly around Tinnok’s waist, and the witch felt emotions welling up inside her. Every being on Mizahar came into this life and left it alone…but perhaps she could be of some comfort to his female in her last moments. She felt a bit of pain, the pain of muscles eroding away from bones, making walking or standing now impossible for the cow. Breathing was now difficult, age and other liquids choking up cavities, the throat. Tinnok did not know if one died of old age, or simply sicknesses one couldn’t name, but there was nothing apparent in this Tskanna’s death other than her age. Shifting her position into one of slight more comfort, Tinnok laid her head on the Tskanna’s trunk and listened like a small babe to the sounds, the feelings, of a giant dying creature.

by **Tinnok** on June 8th, 2014, 1:38 am

She found that slowly, almost miraculously, and entirely unconsciously, her breathing seemed to slow to equal the rate of the great Tskanna, whose trunk wrapped around Tinnok’s legs like an old wrinkled wall, the sensitive pink fleshy nostrils laying in the witch’s lap. She could almost feel her heartbeat slowing, beating in time with the weakening one inside the cow’s massive chest, and for a long time her eyes closed, simply taking in the strange feeling of being united with the creature whose energy was being sapped chime by chime as vultures and other scavengers circled overhead, just waiting for their chance to pick over the carcass. So was the nature of the world. Those too feeble and weak gave way for the strong and clever, to the young that would also eventually die, such a strange and beautiful cycle.

Tinnok’s arm rested on the section of the Tskanna’s head where face melded into trunk, sliding on the strangely soft wrinkled grey flesh, staring into rheumy dark eyes, heavy lidded. A curiosity filled her then, and she felt the peace of this moment, the calmness of her mind aid in the focusing of her magic, drawing energies out of her body and mind, and funneling them into the arm that rested on the Tskanna’s trunk. She pressed and stretched her djed, forcing it into every cavity of her arm, letting it fill up her scaled flesh. Her eyes were so close to the wrinkles and skin of the Tskanna, they consumed the whole scope of her vision as she began to mimic its nature. First there was the color. Tskanna’s were a strange bluish hue, this one, aged, and thus more grey. Her skin was a strange sheen of tan, the faintest hint of something else due to her scales. She remembered her lessons with Svan, how he had shown her to morph, then she had simply manipulated her scales, and their color, so first she did that. They were not tan, they were blue.

Telling herself these things as if they were facts, helped her visualize and make real the actual transformation, focusing her energy in one spot in the middle of her arm first and willing the nodes there that controlled the pigment to change. At first nothing happened, and her mind fluttered worriedly, then she saw a splotch of bluish grey, a strange mingling of her ideals of a young Tskanna and the one actually before her melding in that instant. She focused in this instance on the younger bluer version, and saw that as her mind focused on the reality of something that the pigment changed. She had to believe and will it into life, shaping these things in such an abstract way was hard for her mind to wrap around, but in these instances helping to keep things simple was key, and she sighed softly, the Tskanna’s calmness even in the face of its death helping her maintain her focus. She concentrated on that one bluish spot of flesh, then expanded outward, letting the color sink into the whole of her arm, running her djed up from her elbow to the tips of her fingers so her arm up till the knobby bone of her elbow was the blue color.

She felt her breath catch in her throat at the effort, but she was not done yet, not by a long shot.

Word Count567

by **Tinnok** on June 8th, 2014, 2:06 am

Now the half breed had most of a bluish arm, but her scales were there, not the soft leathery flesh of a Tskanna. This was something she had not tried before. She had made her snake tail once, but she had just mimicked her own scales. Now she had to replicate a whole nother skin type. She could see its strange creases and minute lines, could feel its texture, thicker than her skin, yet just as soft, in some places little furs exploding from the skin. First she thickened her skin, feeling the layer of her hand where her muscles were, and the thin membrane that covered her whole body that protected her, this line, just in the places she had made blue, she stretched, only slightly, feeling her skin lengthen. The wrinkles around her knuckles thickened and she felt an uncomfortable sensation there, forcing her fingers to curve inward, removing dexterity form the limbs. Tinnok took this opportunity to change her very hand, her very arm in fact. She was slightly frightened now, of what she was about to do, but something felt right about it all, the images and feeling she was receiving through her contact of the Tskanna’s long life, the calves it had birthed, the fruit it had eaten, the contact it had had with its herd. She saw very few images of Myrians, leading her to believe it was a wild Tskanna, and something sat right with her about that, as if this creature didn’t want to dredge up the recent turmoil she had undergone, that had largely led her here to find solace.

So she took her fear and stowed it away as she…removed her very bones. She circled them with her djed, tracing them, feeling their weight, size and shape, then…pulled them away. Her fingers suddenly flopped uselessly downward, becoming empty sacks of flesh and muscle, the nails disappearing as well, she substituted the bones for more muscle, anchoring the muscles upon the remaining bone of her elbow that led up to her shoulder, winding the tendons around this point. Then she pulled in the fingers, shaping the useless flesh, flattening it out, and pressing it inward, hollowing it out so that the lower part of her arm was slowly taking the shape of a Tskanna trunk.

Beads of sweat trickled down her brow. She tentatively tried to move her arm, and found that it twitched. It felt so strange, it was like wiggling one’s nose, but required far more effort, and as she started to realize…dexterity. She swiped uselessly at the Tskanna’s trunk, whose energy was waning even more rapidly now.

Not yet, old one, just a little longer, please.

She swung the half limb back towards her, pushing the djed back into position that had lapsed with the experimental movement, it was still a snake trunk, she wasn’t done yet.

Word Count479

by **Tinnok** on June 8th, 2014, 2:07 am

Tinnok’s brow knitted tightly as she examined her strange limb, unsure of what to work on next. The skin, it still wasn’t right. What she had done had made a few wrinkles appear, but it still wasn’t thick enough, the muscles within not corded enough to be as dexterous or as powerful as a Tskanna trunk, which could uproot small trees, grasp fruit, cling to one another’s tails…

First the texture of the skin, starting from one spot like before, Tinnok smoothed out her scales, not so much eliminating them as making them miniscule. From what she had seen of Tskanna and human flesh alike, the skin appeared one solid object, but had the tiniest of creases, almost like a strange biological weave, so she multiplied her scales, making them small, not interlocking them like a snake but placing them together. She peered close to her arm, seeing the sheen of her scales disappear, and ran her free, un morphed hand over the small patch of skin, the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. Flesh…she had made, Myrian, human…Tskanna flesh. It was thicker than human for sure, but in actuality it should be thicker. Knives didn’t cut Tskanna skin like they did a Myrian or a half breed traitor. She imagined this strange fleshy weave sinking deeper into the flesh, interlocking down until they met muscles, and felt the appendage stiffen somewhat, adding a lining along the inside, the bit on the inside of the nose, that thing that allowed you to move it, except in this case had to stretch a couple feet. She twitched the appendage again, finding it highly more responsive to her movements, but still it was not complete.

This time her model was herself, free hand running over her lips. The Tskannas trunk was a nose, but it was a sensitive grabbing tool, and she always imagined the ends sensitive like lips, soft, easily injured. She had the concave section of her arm trunk formed, but it had the same thick skin she had finally managed to get somewhat to regulation, now it needed to change to become like fingertips, lips. She channeled her magical energy into the tip of what used to be her arm, taking away the thickness she had made there, thinning the skin and reinforcing musculature around the edges of the trunk, the kind that wound enable the strange nose lips of the Tskanna to grab onto objects and hold them with just the end of their trunk, like an awkward two edged hand. She flexed the appendage, focusing her new muscles in the tip, and found it awkward, ungainly, but when she brushed it along the flesh of the Tskanna she felt a prickle, it was highly sensitive, maybe overly so.

Then the cow responded, her trunk coming up, sniffing the end of Tinnok’s half made one. She wouldn’t know the first thing about actually shaping nostrils inside of it, how to connect them to her body in order for them to function half properly, but the purpose of her attempt had been made, the dying Tskanna, her mind and body fading into nothingness, sensed the familiarity of the form, and weakling wrapped herself around the trunk. Tinnok felt a flood of emotion, the feeling of a mother giving birth to calves, cleaning them, feeding them, seeing them grow, making more, and even though it was a strange mixture of pain and exhaustion flooding through this creature, she felt a painful pang of genuine happiness, of contentment…

Then the Tskanna’s heart ceased beating, and Tinnok was left staring into blank, lifeless eyes, tears dribbling down her cheeks and onto her strange makeshift trunk.

Word Count616

by **Tinnok** on June 14th, 2014, 2:08 am

The half breed didn’t know how long she lay there, tears running freely from her cheeks onto the creased leathery folds of her dead companion. Her trunk turned arm stroked the Tskanna cow’s trunk gently even in death, Tinnok realizing the comfort of the gesture with a stark realization as she grasped how to utilize the appendage. It was so versatile and sensitive, no wonder the Tskanna and Ashta were constantly checking everything around them with it, the idea of a nose and a hand in one seemed such a logical thing in that instant, and the half breed wished she had the energy to attempt mimicking the smelling power of the trunk. Perhaps if she made one from her own nose it would be far easier, simply thickening and lengthening her own nose into one. But that was a study for a later time.

Instead, when the first carrion birds began to land on the Tskanna’s corpse did the half breed calmly release the djed she had concentrated in her arm. She felt the thick trunk muscles recede, her bones replacing them, scales returning where triangular splotches of skin had been before, watching as one by one her fingers popped out of what had been the unformed nostrils of the morphed trunk. It was not a particularly pretty process. Kelvic transformations happened in a flash of dazzling lights and smoke, something magical and mysterious about them, but with morphing everything that was happening was on display before you.

It took a couple chimes before her arm and hand was back to normal, and Tinnok flexed her fingers, a tingling in them almost as if they had fallen asleep. Though the djed she had been holding in place returned to whatever fountain she held within her body, she felt exhausted from the complex shift, never having attempted such a thing before. The snake tail had been the closest thing, yet already having scales and traveling with a boa constrictor for so long, modeling the tail hadn’t been a problem.

She forced herself to rise slowly, wiping away the tears and walking over to the vultures and crows that had amassed, one particularly brazen crow already going for the eye of the cow. She ran a hand over its glossy black feathers, resulting in a friendly caw from the bird, feeling its hunger. They needed to eat too, and this place was like a dinner table set out, but as she saw the bird’s thoughts she realized it wasn’t so simple. Tskanna and Ashta were not plentiful like deer or agouti. Yes they came here to die so the birds could rely on this place, but sometimes weeks passed without a single creature here. With this information, Tinnok wondered why the birds hadn’t been on the cow before her death. She pulled back her hand and began to walk anew through the grass, fingers trailing along the dry stalks, letting the heat of Syna’s rays pound against her flesh as she traversed the grave site. A strange morbid beauty that the witch felt in tune with sank into her being, her breathing evening out, settling to next to nothing as she crossed the plains.

She slowly aimed for one of the strange thick and round trees with short strange branches. It took her nearly half a bell to arrive at the nearest one, wherein she sat amidst its roots, listening to its peaceful presence. It seemed that this shape was optimum for collecting and storing water for when it did not come, which she had seen from the crow as well. Rain clouds would appear, but no rain would fall until it reached the mountains she had come down from to arrive here. The heat, the exhaustion, coupled with the aura of the tree pulled the Witch then, drawing her into a deep slumber. Her eyelids flickered once, a weak attempt to remain in the land of the conscious, then she was lost to a warm darkness that sucked her in deep and fast.

Word Count673

by **Tinnok** on June 14th, 2014, 3:06 am

In the half breed’s delirium a dream slid into her unconscious mind, weaving away at her thoughts. Upon the dead Tskanna cow a small army of carrion feeders was forming, slowly ripping apart thick flesh, some pecking and ripping the soft flesh of the mouth out in order to skip the effort and zeal it took to get through the Tskanna’s skin, which despite, or perhaps because of its age, was still thick and leathery. This was only the first step in the long term decomposition of the great beast. A day and insects would be laying their eggs inside its corpse, a few more and the larvae and maggots would set into the meat, which would then be rotting, the sun baking the exposed flesh and slowly wearing the creature away.

In an entirely different plane, however, Tinnok dreamt that she was riding the Tskanna cow across a plain just like the one she was lying in, no trees as far as she could see, only the yellow grass that whistled and brushed against itself in a light breeze. Staring out across the vast expanse the world looked to be made of gold, the blue cloudless sky complimenting the color perfectly.

She nudged the Tskanna with a foot, urging her forwards, though in her mind she couldn’t truly tell if they were moving or not, for the landscape shifted, but never changed, grasses flowing, sky cloudless and clear, and it seemed as if she was stuck in one place, trapped in this open expanse. She spread her arms to the sky, and a giant crow swooped out of the sky, marring its perfection. Its claws sunk into the flesh of her shoulders, but she felt no pain even as crimson rivulets wound their way down her arms and chest. It lifted her off of the Tskanna, up and up into the blue sky.

Soon the golden plains disappeared, and now she found herself floating in a world of blue, only the occasional droplets of blood flying off her and falling into its expanse changing the scenery.

“You are lost Tinnok.” The crow cawed. She looked up in surprise, for the words were surprisingly understandable coming out of the beak of a crow.

“But I found my way here.” She argued, her voice coming out as whiny.

“You found your way here, searching for something that was in the opposite direction.” The crow complacently told her.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” She whined again.

“It does if you look within.” It cawed, then those claws let go of the half breed and she was falling through the clear blue sky, her arms and legs stretched out to either side in a great X, not sure whether to be afraid or grateful for the ride and the fall it entailed.

When Tinnok woke, her body seizing, eyes snapping open and her hand jumping to her dagger she still felt as if she was falling. Her heart pounded in her chest, and it took her a moment to realize it was growing dark, Syna probably had just dipped over the horizon. A pang of hunger stuck in her gut and the witch rummaged around in her pack, drawing out a few slivers of dried mango, slipping them into her mouth and letting her saliva soften the dehydrated fruit a bit before slowly chewing it. She felt out in the open and rather exposed from her new place at the base of the tree surrounded by the high grasses, but simultaneously a feeling of security came over her. This was a holy place, at least for Myrians if not also to some extent the Dhani. If there was one place in Falyndar where she needn’t worry about Dhani and Myrians murdering her outright, it was here.

So instead of building a fire and finding a safe place high in the baobab tree to sleep beneath, Tinnok merely ate her mango and half a handful of almonds before placing her pack on a tree root and staring out into the dark grasses. Dreams were reflections of the self, but what had that one meant? She had found this place based on the stories and tales she had heard from others traveling here, she wasn’t lost, she was at peace her, more so than almost anywhere she had ever been, yet even as she assured herself of this, something niggled in the back of her mind, telling her this was not so.

Her mind slowly ran over her trip here, fleeing from Taloba, her encounters up until this point, the dangers, the Myrians she had murdered, surviving. She regretted little to none of it, but there was one thing…

It hit her like a bull Tskanna landing directly upon her, her mind wondering why she hadn’t thought of it earlier; Rarik. She had said a sort of farewell to all of those she could. To Kohl, to her Mother, to the clan leader, even to her sisters, but Rarik…he had been out on duty, there was no way she could have had the opportunity to say goodbye. At first she had checked this off as an inevitability, something she simply had to come to terms with, but the longer she traveled, the more she dwelled on the fact that she had left without so much as a note of farewell to her little brother. He would surely hate her, his only knowledge of her departure combined with the rumors, which would have some element of truth to them. She had killed her own flesh and blood…or at least half of it, twice. Once to defend a Dhani, the second time to ensure she escaped from Taloba without being dragged back as a traitor.

She had decided long ago she could live with Rarik’s hate, for that was only right of him to feel. But to never see him again, knowing she had never even tried to say goodbye? That cut her deeply, pulled at her heart and soul. That was what the crow had meant when it said she was going in the opposite direction.

But going to find Rarik meant going back towards Taloba, perhaps even Zinrah if he was stationed at the blockade. It meant searching for one male solider in the thousands and trying to speak to him without getting killed by all the others.

It basically meant…death.

Yellow eyes stared up into the darkness thoughtfully.

Word Count1,074

by **Tinnok** on June 22nd, 2014, 2:18 am

Leth appeared in a sliver, Zintila’s entourage joining him the sky that night as two thoughtful yellow orbs stared into the blanket of stars and moon in search of answers that would come from within. Her duty was to Caiyha, first and forever for the blessing she had laid upon the half breed’s flesh, yet she would not be able to fully journey out into the world unless she knew she had done everything she could ot say goodbye to Rarik. Even if she never found him…the trying mattered…

She twisted her neck away from the sky and swore under her breath. What foolishness those thoughts were, they were those of a sad desperate child, yet she could not push them away. The sad desperate child within her had rarely ever been complimented, nurtured or cared for. Rarik had cared for her, however, as much as a little brother could in Myrian society. He had laughed and played with her, treated her like…lie Aya and Razkar and Kohl, and the creatures of the jungle, as an equal.

Tinnok slammed a fist into the hard packed earth beside her, mind made up when she noticed a swirling and swishing of the grass in front of her that her thoughts had distracted her from. Fingers crept down to the hilt of a dagger upon her belt, eyes flickering back and forth. What emerged from the grasses, illuminated only slightly by the sliver of Leth’s light, was a creature Tinnok had never before seen, nor even heard of.

She would say it was cat like, but had leathery skin in place of fur, and no ears, at least not one’s that came off of its head. Small tusks emerged from the sides of its face, a long whip like tail flicking side to side, and though it had four long lean legs, there were two smaller arms between its front one, curled up like an Agouti standing on its rear legs looking out for predators. It padded forward slowly, head down, nostrils flaring inquisitively. Black eyes communicated to the Witch that it meant her no harm, and was simply curious of the one who had encroached upon its territory. Sharing its thoughts Tinnok realized it had taken part in the scavenging of the Tskanna cow, and full, was now looking for a place to rest for the night.

Two tan fingers slowly brushed against the slightly wrinkled skin, running over the creature’s forehead, behind the holes where it must hear from and scratching inquisitively there. A sort of rumble emenated form its chest, and Tinnok smiled as the creature lay down, neatly folding its long tail and laying down a respectful distance away from the witch. The two creatures looked up once more into the clear night sky, Tinnok admiring her view, the fact that it was unnecessary to climb high up into a canopy in order to view a clear swathe of it like this. She took another swig of her water, then smiled softly and leaned back against the tree.

Tomorrow she would set off from this grand place, back into the jungle, back towards danger. There was one more thing she had to take care of.

Word Count536

by **Voodoo** on June 29th, 2014, 8:00 pm

Your Powers Grow

Tinnok

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Solo Thick Skin [The Grave of Behemoths]