4th of Fall
Year 513
The first thing she is aware of is the drumming. It echoes in the core of her body like a restless tattoo. A two beat rhythm that drowns out everything else.
Moaning, Uleru rolls over, pushing her face into some sort of beautiful, silky material to try and muffle the din. What is this? She strokes her cheek, feeling he soft strands caressing her face. It feels strangely familiar.
Wait.
She swings herself upright and both hands fly to her head. Hair. Her crown is covered in downy soft locks of hair the colour of spiderwebs. The drumming gives an almost painful bang at the revelation.
The Otani's eyes adjust and she takes in her surroundings with a kind of mute wonder. She is bedded down on a pile of cotton blankets patterned with the beautiful colours used by the Sevfra. On her left is a calm, glassy bay with every kind of blue layered through it like a elaborate cake. The right is taken up by leafy foliage so perfect it couldn't possibly be wild. A thin stream trickles into the bay with a musical bubbling.
It would be perfect, if it wasn't for the drumming.
Her hand goes to her temple as if to try and massage the sound out, and she is met with the sight of her perfectly formed hand, almost painfully white in the glow of Syna's light. It's not the glassy, transparent hand she is used to, it's flesh and bone.
No, that cant be right.
She extends both arm in front of herself. Perfect, white human arms. They are embedded with scales and webbing in all the same places as her normal aquatic body. She pulls herself to her feet, the drumming picking up its tempo almost unbearably, echoing in her head and the hollow of her chest. She is naked, alive and so very human, or as close as can be. A wild kind of joy bubbles in her chest, and she spends the next few chimes exploring this new figure; fingers flying across her ribs, her shoulders her thighs.
This is something she has always admired from afar, even longed after. But now it is all around her. It is her. And in her imaginings, she always expected skin to feel dry. But its not. It's powdery and soft and so warm. She holds her arms before her, feeling the bones move in her hands, her wrists. It is all so solid, so warm and so safe. Nothing could reach her in here, under the layers of flesh and bone.
As she stands, turning this way and that, she holds the long sheet of silvery hair to her face and admires the perfect mechanisms with which she moves. She holds her arms out, spins, twisting to try and see her back. For a second she catches hers reflection in the water. Her shape is exactly the same as it always was. Its almost like someone dismantled her and put her back together with new materials.
And as she admires her reflection she suddenly feels, for the first time in her life, very naked. It is a new sensation, and she is puzzed with what to do about it. She edges back to her sleeping nest and picks up one of the richly purple blankets out of the pile. Uleru wraps it around herself, letting it hang from under her arms straight to her feet. There, that's much better.
But the noise, what is this noise?
She holds the blanket up over her ears to try and block out the sound, but that doesn't work. Frustration colours her cheeks, and the rise of blood seems to excite the drumming further. It rattles in her bones and pounds through her feet, but the water remains calm and undisturbed. Can it not feel it too?
Desperate and mute, she rushes to the bay. If the water cant feel it, maybe it can dampen the sound in her ears as well. But as soon as her feet touch the water she knows something is wrong. The water, that has always been home, has been life, feels wrong on her new body. It feels so distant even as it touches her skin.
No, it doesn't matter. With a gasp she throws herself underwater, willing the drumming to wash away, to drown itself in her fathers realm. But it's still there. The water swirls around her, so cold and so light and a briliant azure blue, but she cant touch it. Or it doesn't touch her. She is wet, she can feel it, but It doesn't wash over her soul like it used to. It's barred by the layers of skin and bone.
She tries swallowing the water, opening her arms and inviting it in, but nothing helps. Everything around her is muffled, padded. She can touch but she cant feel, not like she used to. There is a horrible, suffocating moment then as she realizes that if this body stays, she'll never be able to touch anything again.
The drumming reacts to her trepidation, to her fear, and swells unbearably. It beats against her ribs like a fist. She crawls out of the water and back onto land, gasping and shaking, digging the heels of her hands into her ears and praying to Laviku, to anyone, to please make it stop. But as soon as her hands cover her ears the sound increases tenfold, and she throws her arms away from herself in shock.
The sound isn't outside, its coming from inside her own body. Her mouth goes dry and she tries to block out the sound by force of will, but the rhythm penetrates deep into her soul, the same, two-step tattoo. And with a groan of shock she realizes what this is, what the rhythm means.
ba-dum
ba-dum
ba-dum
It's her heartbeat.
Hand over her pounding chest and eyes wide, a silent scream pushes wordlessly from her open lips. This body doesn't feel safe anymore, it is a prison; restrictive and burning. She imagines that heart ticking away her life one pump of blood at a time. Imagines she can feel this beautiful shell slowly decaying around her. Suddenly her lungs can't hold enough air, her ribs are too tight around her chest. She scratches at the valley between her breasts, desperate to free herself, to breath freely. She keeps digging even as long red gashes bloom under her nails and a hot, burning pain reaches every part of her.
And she is screaming. Screaming and screaming to drown out the pain and the fear, and that insidious heart that drums away the remainder of her suddenly mortal life.
Year 513
The first thing she is aware of is the drumming. It echoes in the core of her body like a restless tattoo. A two beat rhythm that drowns out everything else.
Moaning, Uleru rolls over, pushing her face into some sort of beautiful, silky material to try and muffle the din. What is this? She strokes her cheek, feeling he soft strands caressing her face. It feels strangely familiar.
Wait.
She swings herself upright and both hands fly to her head. Hair. Her crown is covered in downy soft locks of hair the colour of spiderwebs. The drumming gives an almost painful bang at the revelation.
The Otani's eyes adjust and she takes in her surroundings with a kind of mute wonder. She is bedded down on a pile of cotton blankets patterned with the beautiful colours used by the Sevfra. On her left is a calm, glassy bay with every kind of blue layered through it like a elaborate cake. The right is taken up by leafy foliage so perfect it couldn't possibly be wild. A thin stream trickles into the bay with a musical bubbling.
It would be perfect, if it wasn't for the drumming.
Her hand goes to her temple as if to try and massage the sound out, and she is met with the sight of her perfectly formed hand, almost painfully white in the glow of Syna's light. It's not the glassy, transparent hand she is used to, it's flesh and bone.
No, that cant be right.
She extends both arm in front of herself. Perfect, white human arms. They are embedded with scales and webbing in all the same places as her normal aquatic body. She pulls herself to her feet, the drumming picking up its tempo almost unbearably, echoing in her head and the hollow of her chest. She is naked, alive and so very human, or as close as can be. A wild kind of joy bubbles in her chest, and she spends the next few chimes exploring this new figure; fingers flying across her ribs, her shoulders her thighs.
This is something she has always admired from afar, even longed after. But now it is all around her. It is her. And in her imaginings, she always expected skin to feel dry. But its not. It's powdery and soft and so warm. She holds her arms before her, feeling the bones move in her hands, her wrists. It is all so solid, so warm and so safe. Nothing could reach her in here, under the layers of flesh and bone.
As she stands, turning this way and that, she holds the long sheet of silvery hair to her face and admires the perfect mechanisms with which she moves. She holds her arms out, spins, twisting to try and see her back. For a second she catches hers reflection in the water. Her shape is exactly the same as it always was. Its almost like someone dismantled her and put her back together with new materials.
And as she admires her reflection she suddenly feels, for the first time in her life, very naked. It is a new sensation, and she is puzzed with what to do about it. She edges back to her sleeping nest and picks up one of the richly purple blankets out of the pile. Uleru wraps it around herself, letting it hang from under her arms straight to her feet. There, that's much better.
But the noise, what is this noise?
She holds the blanket up over her ears to try and block out the sound, but that doesn't work. Frustration colours her cheeks, and the rise of blood seems to excite the drumming further. It rattles in her bones and pounds through her feet, but the water remains calm and undisturbed. Can it not feel it too?
Desperate and mute, she rushes to the bay. If the water cant feel it, maybe it can dampen the sound in her ears as well. But as soon as her feet touch the water she knows something is wrong. The water, that has always been home, has been life, feels wrong on her new body. It feels so distant even as it touches her skin.
No, it doesn't matter. With a gasp she throws herself underwater, willing the drumming to wash away, to drown itself in her fathers realm. But it's still there. The water swirls around her, so cold and so light and a briliant azure blue, but she cant touch it. Or it doesn't touch her. She is wet, she can feel it, but It doesn't wash over her soul like it used to. It's barred by the layers of skin and bone.
She tries swallowing the water, opening her arms and inviting it in, but nothing helps. Everything around her is muffled, padded. She can touch but she cant feel, not like she used to. There is a horrible, suffocating moment then as she realizes that if this body stays, she'll never be able to touch anything again.
The drumming reacts to her trepidation, to her fear, and swells unbearably. It beats against her ribs like a fist. She crawls out of the water and back onto land, gasping and shaking, digging the heels of her hands into her ears and praying to Laviku, to anyone, to please make it stop. But as soon as her hands cover her ears the sound increases tenfold, and she throws her arms away from herself in shock.
The sound isn't outside, its coming from inside her own body. Her mouth goes dry and she tries to block out the sound by force of will, but the rhythm penetrates deep into her soul, the same, two-step tattoo. And with a groan of shock she realizes what this is, what the rhythm means.
ba-dum
ba-dum
ba-dum
It's her heartbeat.
Hand over her pounding chest and eyes wide, a silent scream pushes wordlessly from her open lips. This body doesn't feel safe anymore, it is a prison; restrictive and burning. She imagines that heart ticking away her life one pump of blood at a time. Imagines she can feel this beautiful shell slowly decaying around her. Suddenly her lungs can't hold enough air, her ribs are too tight around her chest. She scratches at the valley between her breasts, desperate to free herself, to breath freely. She keeps digging even as long red gashes bloom under her nails and a hot, burning pain reaches every part of her.
And she is screaming. Screaming and screaming to drown out the pain and the fear, and that insidious heart that drums away the remainder of her suddenly mortal life.
