Closed Night Terrors

[Pulren Marsh]

60th of Fall, AV 514

Dusk.

Getting settled into the Quay was something that Pulren enjoyed. The ten foot wall that traced the perimeter of the land was one of his favorite things about it, other than having his own private quarters, of course. He knew that soon it would be time to get things straightened out. He had to redecorate his room and make it more of a Palaren room than the current Pulren room that it was. He walked toward the dock and found it more than suitable for naval missions. A stone dock and pier was something of an anomaly in Sunberth. In fact, the grounds and housing was as well, definitely having been throwbacks to days of open slavery beyond what occurred in the present.

He felt that he had a home and it was something worth fighting for. He placed his trident against the stone wall and knelt down, inspecting what he could see of the underside of the dock, looking at it and dreaming about maybe even building a ship one day. All of these dreams would have to come about with the work of sober minds and steady hands, however. Standing again, he took his trident back in hand and turned on his heel to walk back through the open courtyard. The light was leaving the sky and a stiff wind was coming in off of the water.

As he approached the house, Pulren got the kind of feeling he had often had when walking down the deepest bowels of East Street. Something was amiss and he felt as if he might not be alone. Probably just the dismal setting of the day and the stink of the city, but nevertheless, he chose to stop and have a look around. That's when he saw it.Something was perched on the wall opposite from the one nearest him. It was dark and much too large to be a bird, though it appeared to have wings folded behind it. Stepping back until he could feel the cool stone against his back, he took a defensive stance, holding the trident in both hands. All he could do now was stare at it. He wouldn't run.

He wasn't sure that he could.

[Terror]

She liked to watch the things scurry, like the rats that lived in the dark places and gnawed on whatever could be chewed. The people in other cities were boring; they did not hold attention well. They were slow and relaxed, everything that Sunberth couldn't be. The lot of them were food, in the end, but some of them made for good entertainment.

Why she was watching this one made no sense for her. He was not running, fighting, nor screaming in any way. She simply watched him, owlish and intense, and waited for him to do something. He was armed, which was enough to pique her curiosity, as his weapon was stranger than the others she'd been seeing, and she knew he saw her, as he had backed himself into a wall and was staring at her, urging her hackles to raise and her fur to bristle.

Her head cocked at him as she watched him, waiting him out in his stillness. Was he trying to distract her? Antagonise her? Her head cocked, wings shifting simply out of habit, and her fingers curled and uncurled in her palms.

The ticks crawled by as she watched him, as she grew ever more agitated and impatient.
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[Pulren Marsh]

It moved and turned its head, similar to a bird. It ruffled its feathery wings and seemed to regard Pulren .But how was the question. As food, foe or friend? It had the size of a humanoid, so it probably had intelligence. Might as well try to speak to the thing before just attacking blindly. He had a feeling such an act would be foolish and possibly fatal.

"Name yourself! What are your intentions?!"

His guard routines came out as easy as pie. He wished that he had his shield. If the thing was birdlike, it probably had claws. It probably had claws anyway. Taking a few steps closer to the building, he tapped at the stone wall with the blunt end of the trident, keeping the tines up and at the ready. He had no idea if this was some creature randomly hunting or if the visit was on purpose. Whatever the case, he knew that if Markus was inside that whatever the thing was would be sorely mistaken to face them both down.

If not, Pulren was determine to live through this, just like everything else.

[Terror]

The man made noises, sounds with strange rhythms and cadences that grated unusually against Terror's ears. The dissonance of his voice troubled her before she came to the realization that he was speaking, and then she bothered herself with picking apart the sounds in order to make them into something she could understand. Words formed, but they were not the words he spoke. There was no sense in them, and it was frustrating.

She did not like that feeling. Her teeth bared at him for the sensation and she moved, leaning forward and testing her balance in favour of making it apparent that she intended to lunge upon him.

Terror wanted to rip things apart and ruin what she could make no sense of. She wanted to taste things, to hear them suffer before they died, and to smell their skin when it perspired with their fear. This man, whoever he may be, would suit her needs. His sounds made little sense to her, despite her knowing that they were words. She didn't want his words. She was a creature of instinct, monstrous and free. Words didn't work.

Terror, however, was not blind. She could see the tines of his weapon, pointed at her like the sharp-point-sticks some used when traversing the deep cliffs between mountains in Kalea. Those things were sharper than claws and teeth, and just as ruinous. They could reach deep. She could see that they could reach deep. It was only that which stayed her, piqued her curiosity, and urged her to find the meaning of the sounds and words he made.

Eventually, she gave up. There was no use. She forgot the sounds. They turned to rot in her head, dulled by the roaring waves of uncertainty tempered by curiosity. Instead, she figured out the sounds for her own words, and then she made them.

"Rrr-what sss it?" Perhaps if she understood the words she could understand the weapon, the pronged spear, and then she could defeat it.
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[Pulren Marsh]

Either the command of his voice or the rhythm of the trident's shaft against stone was clearly irritating the creature. It caused it to crouch and lean forward, as if to prepare an attack, her face grinning or something similar. While he didn't want to outright taunt the creature, he was finding the actions so far agreeable to keeping it at bay. It was watching the tines of his trident and knew that it was a weapon. This increased its intelligence and danger by a margin.

A sound came from it, akin to Common, though it seemed clear that words were secondary to action to the thing. Did it want to know what the trident was or what the sound was? Could it see? Could it sense more than see or see more than sense? Pulren slowed the staccato of the taps against the stone, moving the trident to one side or the other to find out how clear its vision was. "It's a weapon. Declare your intention."His words were quieter, so as not to cause as much chaos, but they were still as direct and pointed as his weapon was. Failure to reply would only aggravate him and the situation. A few more steps were taken toward the house, now the length of the courtyard halved by his sideways steps.

[Terror]

He spoke again, rattling his forked weapon steadily as he did so, and she was distracted between the both. Her mind churned, reasoning out a method to deal with the weapon much as a spear could be dealt with while hunting alone, but it was hard to think with it rattling like that, tapping incessantly.

When the trident moved, her eyes watched it intently and her head cocked, observing the motion. It was like a pendulum, entrancing the Zith, but his words, as they had before, cracked through her trance and earned something of a snarl from her, a curl of her upper lip to show her teeth. She didn't understand what he was saying, so she came to the logical conclusion that he was mocking her.

The Zith realised that the man was moving finally and her immediate response was to follow. Her wings spread, full length apparent under the moonlight, and she lunged towards a spot further down the wall, and when she settled again she did so with her whole body tensed, rigid and ready to act should he have taken advantage of her moment of distraction and made a run for it. Terror was made for hunting, for swarming, and even though she was alone she had learned the tactics of her brethren whilst in the tall-grass-plains enough to figure out a tactic to use on him.

If he didn't run, she would attempt another word of communication with him. Because she understood the smallest margin of what he'd said before, she didn't attempt to respond. "Rrrrun?" The 'r' was rolled, combined with a low growl that traveled its way into a lower pitch, rich and dark in sound. Though it came out on the tone of a question, it was more of a statement. If he wanted to be prey, armed with sharp-needle-teeth, she would insist he be prey.
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[Pulren Marsh]

It was becoming steadily clear and clearer by the chime that the creature had little intention to meet or greet. This thing most likely wanted to feed and had chosen Pal's little pal all alone in the courtyard. He would have to speak to Bitzer and the others about keeping torches up or he would have to use his Earth Reimancy to somehow make the walls less perchable. Either way, he could see that he was irritating the beast, a harsh cry coming from its face. Pulren could feel eventuality creeping in.

As his steps continued to plod with purpose in a motion which headed toward the back door of the Quay house, it was apparent that the creature was nearly at an end for game playing. When it launched itself from the wall and settled down near where he was heading, Pulren stopped. He looked at the distance between himself and the beast and then himself and the door. He could possibly make it to the door without injury or fight. He could definitely make it there with a fight. He stopped banging the trident against the wall, choosing instead to keep it in front of him firmly in both hands. His pace began to increase as he moved toward the Quay door.

The creature added insult to injury with a mocking sound that rag of the the word Run, though it was more a cawing sound made by this thing that was as far removed from a bird as a living thing could be. Now was the time for action, not words. His feet began to pick themselves up from the stony courtyard flor as Pulren began a kind of stalking sideways jog. His eyes moved from the door to the beast. Door. Beast. Door. Beast. weapon raised and ready to stab if approached. His heart was beating faster than his feet could ever carry him. Run indeed.

[Terror]

Satisfaction, heady and irresistible, rolled through Terror's body when the human responded to her demand, his flight becoming more hurried. In response, her head cocked.

Ticks counted down towards the point where he would have escaped her yet her mind worked on a tactic to stop him before he escaped. If she were amongst her kin, especially those of her colony, she already knew what would happen. They would dive down, all at once, and overwhelm him. Gnawing and chewing and devouring even while he still breathed if only so he would cease struggling.

Terror did not have her colony, however. She was as alone as any Zith could be, captured in a forced sort of self-exile. It didn't matter, though.

The memory of her colony was faint.

The human currently making his exit was more important than dredging up memories.

Again, Terror lunged further, hoping to intercept him and force him to pursue another path. She resisted the urge to take to the ground, knowing that down there he would have the upper hand with his weapon.

Her claws dug into the shingles of the roof as she lit upon it, hunching her shoulders and scowling down at him, beginning to snarl in full even if he wouldn't see her display meant to intimidate. He didn't have to. It was habit.

"No," she said.
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[Pulren Marsh]

He was already on the move, trident in hands and eyes moving between blessed barrier and open sky of dark wings and death. He could feel a kind of terror rising in his throat, though he wouldn't dare make some kind of mewling noise. If that didn't mark him as dinner, nothing would. He could only focus on each step drawing him closer to relative safety. The Quay house was sturdy for sure and would give him a tactical superiority. Could it open doors?

The beating of its wings pushed him into a run. Might as well, given the circumstances.One hand had to leave the trident as it firmly wrapped itself around the handle of the rear door of the Quay. Looking up, his mouth opened wide in awe and fear as the creature was mounted directly above, the twilight sky silhouetting it and making the creature all the more imposing. It spoke the word, "No." That's all he needed, whipping the door open and closed behind him. The key to the door was hanging next to it and he immediately , hands shaking, set to locking the door. Stepping backward toward the shadows, he continued to grip the trident, hard enough to give himself splinters.

[Terror]

The human reacted as Terror wanted, making his flight all the more satisfying to her. Her heart pounded a quick tempo in her chest, responding to the smell of fear, however light, and her pupils, if they'd have been seen, widened. Fear was visceral and a part of Terror's society, her very identity. It only fueled her and excited her.

As he fled into his nest, his home, she took advantage of his turned back, seeing only the opportunity to strike him down now that his weapon was not turned to her. Her wings pulled in, allowing her to tumble swiftly into a dive, and she made straight for him. Her teeth were bared as she came down, clenched in anticipation of ripping into flesh and lapping at blood. She salivated. Her stomach snarled as she let loose a matching sound that raised into a shriek.

The door closed and she slammed into it hard enough to fall down onto the ground, winded and dazed. There she lay for a chime or two, lost in a moment of weakness brought on by the collision. Her head rang, her breath hitched, and her chest, arms, face, and wings ached. It was so thoroughly startling that she'd been bested by prey that she was sluggish in returning to her senses.

Eventually, the Zith shook her head as the ticks slid by, pushing herself back up to her hands and knees so as to not remain prone, instinctively fearing the presence of another who would prey upon her in her weakened state. There was always a bigger Zith, a larger hunger. She needed to move, for she now remembered that the human had a sharp-spine-weapon and he would not be as hindered by the door as she.

Whether or not he emerged from the building to finish the work on the stunned Zith, she started to crawl away on all fours towards the darkest corner, the deepest shadow. Hunting instinct dictated the man be treated as warily as a cornered wolf with a longer reach. She needed the shadows.

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