Fear of the Inexplicable (Wrenmae)

[Naeya]

Fear of the Inexplicable Timestamp: Season of Fall, 81st Day, 512 AV Naeya awoke with a sudden gasp. Her chest jolted forward in shock before being roughly dragged back against the steel bars that held her prisoner. Prisoner? Green eyes widened with fright as they darted around the room. Each discernible detail made her stomach flip. She was in a warehouse - a familiar warehouse, which was odd because she didn't remember any buildings like this in Mura. On the far side of the warehouse, within her clear line of sight, was a door. It taunted her with promises of freedom and possibility and escape. Next to the door lay a barrel. Oil trailed along the dirt-caked floor, glinting dangerously in its patternless whirls. So familiar... And then she looked down. Ropes bound her wrists to cold steel, each arm spread a bar apart from her small hips. Metal chains spiraled around and around her legs, binding them together as Cheva bound two lovers; inseparable. "No!" The konti strained against her chains. She pressed forward, but the bindings were too tight and cut into her skin and scales. An involuntary cry of agony escaped her lips as the metal dug at her ankles, searching for bone. "Help! Please, someone! Anyone! Let me go! Please let me go..." Screams turned to whimpers as feelings of helplessness and imprisonment closed in on her. Panic swelled in her chest. Her heart thudded against her ribs, as if it believed breaking her own bones would be easier than another chime spent in chains. Never before had she felt so trapped, so caged, so out of control. "Avalis, help me!" She was a fish out of water, waiting to be flayed.

[Wrenmae]

Oh little child,
Lost in Alvadas

Wrenmae stood apart from Naeya, shadowing the warehouse wall. The oil around her feet glistened, almost in the expectation of light. Everything felt surreal outside the immediate spill of oil, colors casting waves of incandescent nonsense into the niches. At the door, Shroud stood with a lantern full of wrath, Ivak’s own fire pressing against the panes of glass. He did not sing, because he had no face. There was only the body, the serene absence of anything but pale skin beneath his hazel-frayed hair. Music and words swelled on the air itself, the memory speaking the little rhyme he had spoken seasons ago to Ximal.

Clinging to your eyes
When your vision is gone

He saw two people chained to the cage, victim of his hypnotic whims and annoyance. One was the brute, Ximal, practically a giant in stature and glaring out at Wrenmae with eyes black in coal hate. The other was a woman…no, a Konti. Her opalescent hair was knotted and tangled, her eyes a terrified too-bright, flickering moon-gaze in the sepulcher of this warehouse. She was chained as Ximal had been, her legs kicking uselessly at the oil gripping her legs and seeping up her thighs. The Wrenmae at the door hoisted the lantern up.

Oh little child
Lost in Alvadas

The hand released the lantern. Wrenmae watched it tumble through the air, catching nothing and stopped by nothing. He knew the next part. It would shatter on the oil and a corsefire would roar up within this dry pile of lumber. Ximal…the konti, they would be consumed. Without even realizing why, he stepped from the shadows and towards the girl. He had no qualm with her, no reason to burn her. He was slowly shaking the sleep-thick dream from his mind, pushing logic into bones and limbs into locomotion. The lantern cracked against the oil, and mouths of thundering inferno raced through their new home towards the two of them. Wrenmae stood in front of Naeya, throwing out his cloak as the flames rose up around him. There was blinding pain and then…

You could never see

But he had dropped the lantern, he had tied Ximal to the cage. It was no faceless monster, it was no shadow of his past. It was him, a part of him. And suddenly he was across the room, the fire was as it had never been, and he held the lantern in his hand.

And he repeated the last words, setting the lantern on the ground gently, away from the spill.

“You could never see, through the illusions he wove.”

There was a silence between them.

"This isn't how I remember it," he admitted, staring at her, "You are not Ximal."

[Naeya]

Oh little child, Lost in Alvadas The words that answered Naeya's panicked screams were more threat than song. Alvadas, city of tricks and deceptions and doubt. She'd hated the city of illusions and the way it broke down her reality, grinding it to dust within mere moments. Hearing the land's name while tied down, unable to flee, only served to amplify her fright. What horrible deceits did Ionu have in store for her this time? As if in response, the konti's terrified gaze was drawn to the warehouse door where a man - a creature - materialized, pale and faceless. The lantern in his hand was filled with flames that flickered and mingled uneasily, casting dark shadows and calling to be released from their gilded cage. All remaining colour drained from Naeya's face, and she kicked desperately at the chains that bound her. "Ionu, leave me be!" she cried. Her lovely features were contorted with distress, and a god-fearing shriek was ripped from her lungs as she watched the lantern drop. The triumphant flames hurtled toward her and she braced herself to be consumed, shutting her eyes against the blinding light as a cloaked figure stepped before her and threw out his arms. But the pain she'd expected did not come. Naeya reacted slowly, opening one eye, first, and then the other. Her chest heaved as it struggled to control the pounding of her heart, and droplets of blood fell from the incisions her clenched nails had made in each palm. At the door, fire twinkled in the lantern as if it had never left. And the creature? The creature was no longer. In its place stood a man, a man with shaggy hair and shadowed eyes and a scarred nose. A human man, with a human face. Thank goddess for his human face. The konti returned his gaze in silence as her heavy breathing began to slow. As he spoke, a dim memory called at her from the deepest recesses of her mind and she struggled to give it words. "That song..." she replied, her voice raw from screaming. "Why do I know that song?" She furrowed her brow in quiet confusion. The answer was on the tip of her tongue, but it danced just out of her reach like a rascally wraith and her thoughts soon turned to more practical matters. "Who are you?" Naeya glanced apprehensively at the shackles that kept her static. "Are you here to free me? Please, I... I don't know Ximal. I don't even know how I came to be here."