Closed Behind a Hazel Eye [Verin Rush]

[Redd]

Date: Day 41, Winter, 514 AV
Location: Quarters

A howl split the night as Redd tilted her head back to sing her sad song to the full moon above. The one element that had always given her comfort whenever she was alone and scared. It was a strong element, for the moon was always shining from the night sky, only fading from it at certain times of the month. Her song softly drifted off as her nose angled downwards, her golden hue looked down at the snow covered land that she knew well. Land that resided just outside of Ravok. Two separate worlds laid in front and behind her. Behind her laid the forest that she grew up in and in front of her, laid the lake that mirrored the world above it. Redd desperately wanted to fit in, to find her place, but she knew that this wintery solitude was not going to last for very long. Howls rose up behind her, howls of anger that was soon followed by snarls of unwelcome. Slowly, the young, brindled red wolf moved to stand up on her paws as she turned to face the pack of grey wolves. These were not just any grey wolves, they were the one pack of grey wolves that she had grown up with before they had considered her a traitor when she had shifted into human form.

The red wolf lowered her head for a moment as did her ears, she didn’t want to fight a pack that she had once called family. However, the wolves stopped as soon as a laughter began to drift from behind her. A laugh that sent chills down her spine and her ears pressed back against her skull. Then, she turned once again so then the lake laid before her, but in front of it, stood the very being that she despised with her whole being. The blonde man, clad in his usual blue garb, garments that made his grey-blue eyes stand out. Her tail dropped to tuck between her back legs as a snarl of her own rose from within. ”Oh, the beast thinks that it can take me on. Haven’t you learned your lesson slave? You are my inferior and you will forever suffer because of your insolence. What do you think? Should I take your other eye?” He chuckled as he began to walked forwards, as others began to also follow Venser. Behind him stood her mother, Vayl, Elias and Miro. All of them laughed with Venser as the wolves flanked out behind her.

It was all moving far too fast. From a peaceful dream of simply howling to express her own loneliness to suddenly be facing her nemesis, the one that plagued her in both her waking and dreaming states. However, the others were only haunting her dreaming state… For now, but she was sure that she was losing her grip if her nightmares were anything to go by. The wolf had started on a slippery slope the moment that Elias had left her behind and Venser had been the point where she knew that it would end with either one of them or both dying. She had accepted the fact that she would die either way, even welcomed it if it meant that she would escape this never-ending cycle of loneliness. Her paws shuffled for a moment upon the ground as she simply snarled at the man and readied to lunge forth.

Redd’s wolf form was curled tightly underneath the desk within the room that her master had taken up residence. Her form would shiver as the muscles within her form would bunch as whimpers and snarls rose from her sleeping form. Her top lip was rising in order to bare her teeth as her ears twitched with this. The young wolf’s tail was tucked firmly between her hind legs as her paws also twitched, twitched with movement.

[Verin Rush]

The scrape of the wolf’s paw against the stone walls was what caused Verin to look up to investigate the sound, eyebrows furrowed. It had been mere bells since Verin’s use of Hypnotism has ripped through his young, impressionable slave’s mind, causing her to see and believe things were there that, in reality, weren’t. He had done all this - as was his right as her owner - without Redd’s permission or knowledge, and she had been completely unprepared. Since the incident, he had also not had the opportunity to see to her well-being for, by the time he had returned to the small room that they shared, Redd has already transformed and was asleep.

He was concerned about her, unsure as to how she was coping with his torment upon her mind. But he had hesitated to wake her, believing that a restful night of sleep would hasten her recovery. So, while she slept, he was sat on his bed, knees bent with a few sheets of parchment resting on his thighs. A candle was held in one hand and a stick of charcoal was staining the other as he twirled it around considering his thoughts. Unable to rest, he had decided to record the events of the day, with particular attention to what he had done, and what techniques he had used on Redd in order to witness his desired outcome.

Resting the edge of the charcoal against his parchment, he continued his notes: Not every technique required the use of oral commands or suggestions, but for those which do, it is most effecting when rhetoric ability is used alongside the Hypnotism. In particular, it is important to note that much thought needs to be given to the individual words used, as well as the whole phrase. It is pointless channelling an obscene amount of Djed into the Hypnotism is one’s words are poorly phrased. The slave stirred again, and this time a small whine escaped her lips. Yet she continued to sleep. Verin had not spent many full nights with a woman sleeping beside him, and it had taken a long time to get used to the presence of Redd in his room at nights. She slept mostly as a wolf, though. And he did not understand fully what noises represented what emotion in her sleep.

But he was quickly becoming convinced that she was in the throes of a nightmare. His frown deepened and he continued to stare at her, waiting for the next disturbance. The thought that he should wake her was cast aside before it even had the chance to take root; in her current form, the girl was lethal, and no amount of control over her mind would be able to stop her from ripping into his jugular in a fit of fear. When her stillness dragged on, he returned to his notes. For, in the simple interpreting of one word versus another, it is possible for the user’s intentions to be completely ignored in favour of what the subject believes was meant. I am of the opinion that the shorted the verbal phrasing used, the more effective the Hypnotism can be.

The charcoal continued to scratch away at the parchment as Verin's elegant hand became one of a scrawl as he wrote faster to keep up with his thoughts on the matter. [color=#40BFBF]It would also be interesting to experiment on multilingualism and Hypnotism, that of both the subject and the user: if one (or both) struggles in the language used, how much could that affect the result of the magic? Or, in such cases, does the Djed carry the intended— The thought was not finished. The wax dripped from the candle onto the parchment, onto Verin’s skin, onto the Wolf’s fur. For she was up. She was awake. She had pounced. And she had attacked.