Solo The Oneiric Season

[Ayszel]

.

Autumn 40th

The darkness slithered slowly over the surroundings, floundering only at the outskirts of her camp. The recondite night spilled over into her consciousness as slowly as molasses. Ayszel lay on her back, eyes stuck on the stars, as the noise of the night stretched on timelessly. Grass crunched quietly in the background, the horse’s tails whisking away the last pesky mosquitoes that braved the faintly chilly evening. Zintia, the greatest of the Lhavitian peaks shone quietly in the distance its radiance muffled by the swath of mist that lay over their heights. She had never seen the sky, nor grass so short, nor land so high. She had braved the mountains of Falyndar only once and even that had been a mere hill compared to where she lay now. This land around her held as much of Caiyha as her home, though the press of presence in her center was much dulled, and that was of some comfort in the otherwise alien land.

However, in this moment she was not thinking of these things. She felt sublime peace. She had spent almost a season replaying the events that had led to leaving Falyndar. She had cried, screamed, mourned, laughed…had experienced as much grief as when her mother had died and as much joy as the night Caiyha had touched her. She had never considered leaving before, not once had she wondered at the life outside Zinrah. Her people belonged to the tunnels and to the jungle that surrounded them, not to the mountains or the sea or anywhere else for that matter. Displaced for an eternity… she had moaned to herself several times on the journey.

The air here was different too, dryer and thinner than it had been at home. The animals and plants around her spoke differently, even the few that resembled those from Flayndar. Their voices had moved more slowly as she ascended. While at home the plants had been as voluptuous and dramatic in spirit as in morphology, the plants and animals that spoke here were slow and timorous like the heavy footfalls of the Tskanna. On her way here she had passed such a lifeless terrain her bones had felt hollow. While the mountains held more life that many thought, compared to the jungle it was achingly deserted.

The creatures here were older than those from home. She could tell they were old because those that were still as small as saplings or newborns spoke with the wizened knowledge of the elderly trees of home. They had a satiation in their voice, a constant content murmur. They knew where to find the water and food they needed and how best to preserve it. The plants in Falyndar were always competing so ferociously they sounded like the juveniles of the mountains for all their lives. The grass whispered, cool and quietly, in the back of her head. Engorged with nutrients and water sinking into the consciousness gave her a moment of transient satiation. A distraction from the fact her empty shivering stomach and her croaking throat. The large scales adorning her reptilian head sucked at the moisture in the grass readily, as if they wished to be amphibian for a bell.

Her slitted eyes had widened as far as they were allowed in the dark of the night, drinking in what little they could discern. Compared to a human, what Ayszels eyes saw was a dim haze of speckling in the sky. Reptilian in nature, her eyesight was poor in the dark and while the heat from the animals surrounding her and the structure of her camp was easy to detect with her alternative senses the stars were too far for her limited eyesight to grasp. However, she could not know what others saw, and so her breath was still stolen by the beauty. Little did she know, that this was the last time she would see the stars through these eyes for several moons…soon she would truly experience their magnificence…


Turning her head to the side she watched the city in the distance with some trepidation. Perhaps it would be better to stay here forever. I do not know what lives there. Be it Myrians? Humans? Ayszel had never heard of any place outside of Falyndar and never seen any creature that bore two legs beyond Charoda, Myrian and the occasional human slave before sacrifice. The unknown bit at her with sharp nettles of worry. However, as much as she willed it, the company of the sparse plants and animal life around her did not fulfill her and she felt a deep longing to surround herself in the delightful swell a place teaming with life brought to the back of her head. She hadn't realized until it was gone that it was what had warmed her sun loving body even in the depths of the caves; the warmth of eternal companionship…

[Ayszel]

.

The horses white pelts glowed a pale auburn in the firelight, their black spots fading into the background giving them a tattered ghostly appearance. While she never would have thought to own a surface-dependent terrestrial creature, she had grown quiet fond of the pair during her long trek. She had bought them originally as mere pack animals that she had planned on eating when she reached…wherever she was going. But now that their sweet scents had filled the back of her mind for so many moons the thought of their absence without a replacement made her keenly aware of her own loneliness.

The thought of companionship made her heart twinge dully and she quickly forced her mind to move on. I mussn't dwell on it forever… she reminded herself sternly, tightening the ropes of self control around her throat to choke the emotion down. The horses had settled for the night a ways from the campsite and only by extending her long slit tongue could she sense their direction faintly. Slowly she moved within herself, What step is next? I cannot lay and frolic with the horses forever like some snakeling. I still have seeds from home, though all the plants have died. I could plant them once again once I find a place with enough life to sustain them. They'll freeze In this weather though… she pondered on the intricacies of keeping the plants alive. The last vestiges of home… her subconscious briefly stated explaining their irrationally fierce importance to her.

Four large packs lay on the ground hear the fire, their stomachs stuffed with her many supplies. It had taken many moon phases of packing and repacking to have everything she used frequently readily available. In the sludge and turmoil of the past season her more precious items had made it to the bottom of her packs, unused. The only nonessential that remained near the top was her family’s grimoire in which she had pressed several of the plants she had seen throughout the mountains. While this may have made a human revaluate their priorities and necessities the spoiled Dhani could not help an eternal mourning of the pampered life she had left behind. Luxuriating in the boiling pools beneath the earth, massages under the hands of attractive male Dhani, and the relative ease with which she survived and was provided for.

The grass beneath her had the same slow breathy voice of the rest of the brome grass on the mountain and although it had been cropped short by some herd or other it was the most prevalent plant she had sensed and for so long in her travels she recognized its swell, and if not that the delightful flickering that it elicited in the horses. Salvessstess she whispered as she tilted her head, pressing her cheek into the grass. It was what she had decided to call the plant, having no teacher now to learn the names and ecology of her surroundings. She hadn't realized how much she had known about her homeland until she was thrust into a land with completely unfamiliar plants. What strikes me the most is the homogeneity of the flowers form here. They're tiny petals, wide and open about a powdery center. Nothing in the jungle gave itself up this easily… she pondered as she fingered the little pink and white flowers that danced throughout the meadow, slowly spiraling in the wind. All the plants she had come across so far grew close to the ground, spreading across the ground like moss.

She had tentatively dug up several of the flowers and shrubs looking for root plants, edible leaves or flavourful petals. However, none had yielded any of its secrets of her. While even this strange environment was like touching some small part of Caiyha, it was like holding hands rather than being embraced. While she could sense a little of a plants biology with her gnosis; sense their identity to some degree after enough exposure, sense their need for water or shade, and their state of health but she couldn't tell their properties, after all the plants didn't know or care if they were useful to humans. So like everyone else, she had to test each plant, and each limb of its form. While the majority of the flowers were low laying the most prevalent flower she had seen was not. It had a perky blue head like the little blue grey bodies of the Hickory Tussock Caterpillar atop a spidery stalk. When the Bromegrass (Known as Basssts by Ayszel) could not reach the highest peaks of the moutains they became all the more visible like little floating fireflies in the dark and thus she had named them flisse.

Ayszel had never experienced true seasons, the only season Falyndar experienced was the monsoon season and so the crisp air that nipped at her fingers was not a warning of what was to come, but a confusing disturbance. So, naively perhaps, she entertained the thought of remaining in the mountains. The idea made her slightly nostalgic for the swarming presence of life that had marked her beginnings. Her mind was so used to the fullness that despite the plethora of creatures she would soon learn adorned the mountains her soul was not yet sensitive enough to pick it up.

[Ayszel]

.

As she came out of her mental stupor the cold began to encroach upon her fragile skin raising goosebumps in its wake. Ayszel slinked toward the fire with a gentle undulation of her tail, thankful for the wilderness book that was tucked in the depths of her pack. Though she had perused very little of it, there was a commendable diagram in the first few pages dedicated to camp set up and had made her travels infinitely more comfortable when she had left the heat of the forest. Leaning against the side of one pack, braced into a back rest by the other three Ayszel drew her family grimoire onto her lap and layered her coils to draw it to her chin. The plant leaves used to make the paper were waxy and had slowed their degradation in the moist heat of the jungle. Here, in the drier air of the mountains they had crinkled and shrank somewhat making the book creak when she opened it. The sound made her nose wrinkle in agitation slightly, the book was older than she and had been a permanent fixture in her life, she knew every page by heart. Her mothers scrawl, her grandmothers scrawl, all by heart regardless of the stamps they had had carved to press their initials into the potions they had created or edited. But the creak was new, an artifact of the mountains. A newness she resented in the perfectly preserved memory before her.

My entire life is back in Zinrah…and yet the majority of my life will be spent away from home… she realized as she gazed down at the book. How will I ever learn to wrestle like the champions of my kin now? How will I have serpentlings? How can I know my place in the world without queens and slaves and men? Her place in the world had been defined by her job as a reimancer, her gender and her place within the mesh of webs that formed the political relationships of Zinrah. Without that…she didn’t know how to feel. On one hand she felt free, free from the anger and resentment the last season had wrought on her and yet she yearned for it to return. To be a part of something she cared enough about that it could make her feel so strongly. She thought all this as her fingers moved trancelike through the pages until she reached the end. Her fingers knew it was the end before she did, they had pet the pages so many times before.

At the end of the written pages Ayszel had inserted several mountain leaves and petals she had passed already. With no hand at drawing like her mother and grandmother had had she was relegated to written descriptions and demonstrative examples. Each had been taken from a plant she had brewed into a tea when her own stash had run out. She didn’t dare write in the grimoire yet, one didn’t write until one had created ones own potion. That was traditionally a new philterers first entry in her family. A rite of passage she didn’t dare betray. Perhaps the book would know. It seemed to have a knowing, a fragile elderliness mixed with something more. But perhaps that was just from the fumes of spilled potions that lingered on it. I need my own book… She thought dismissively, there was no way to acquire one here, [i]to write the smells and tastes of each of these plants as I learn their properties.

Several had already proven to be the same plants from home; thyme, mint, saffron, but growing in such an unusual form she hadn’t recognized it until steeped in tea, allowing its odours to be released more fully. The most intriguing however had been this afternoons tea. A lily she had found floating on a small glacial lake. She had collected both the leaves and petals, although finding the petals had a much more pleasant taste had steeped them for her afternoon tea. Having no sense of colour or taste as a snake Ayszel relied heavily on her sense of smell and the particular shape and grooves of the leaves and petals which her eyes were inherently designed for. Although as she had strained out the petals she had found that when breaking them open they held a thick layer of juice within them. It had been too late to add to the tea but she had put some away with the leaves in one of ceramic pots.

POP!

Her head snapped toward the sound, tonguing ejected with a gentle snap as it sought the origin. It had come from the glowing cloud towers, she watched them warily for a moment and only as she was beginning to relax did the second pop erupt, this time from the sky in a shatter of colour that looked as if a rainbow had been struck and ripped asunder by the night sky. The second pop was louder and larger, like the crack of whips that had torn flesh from the screaming backs of Slaves. Her spine tingled with pleasure at the memory.

Opening her mouth slowly, as if she could catch the sparks upon her tongue to relight her soul she craned toward them, tongue wiggling as she sucked in the image before her. She could see nothing but a faint sparkle with her pitiful eyes from this far away. As enormous and well-adapted as they were compared to many serpent eyes they were pitiful compared to the skill and range of a mammalian eye. She had used little magic since she left home, the golden pool within her more distant than ever. It was a balance of self, a trusting of her inner soul which was required to control the swirls of res that could spiral out from her fingers. Her sense of self was so fixed in what she could touch, her physical body now, that her sense of self was so perturbed and disrupted she didn't dare loosen a single finger from her body. She didn't dare delve too deep. So, a part of her strained toward the golden light in the sky, as if it were res she could suck into herself to relight what was waning.

[Ayszel]

.


With the third shattering of colour she could see. Truly see. The world was alight with colour, the grass a deep emerald green, the sky devoid of all colour but the twinkling glass lights, and the blood spilling across the sky. The firework was flaming red as it moved outwards like a ferns limbs fizzling out at the ends casting the landscape and sky in an eerily bloody glow. It was as if the world had been murdered for a moment. Ayszel breathed a sigh of relief. All was dead. All was gone. She was to be born anew.

The world began to spin, like the red and yellow spirals of fireworks. She lay on her side to ease the spinning, resting her head among the blades of grass helped slightly but their voices were distant and distorted in the haze of colour before her. Cephalic flexion tucked her head into her chest so that only her widening pupil could gaze up at the shattering rainbow, her back arched itself followed by caudal flexion of her tail as it curled up to her chin. Reminiscent of embryonic development, the earth coddled her within its womb rocking her slowly, the sky a mobile above her head. Born again…

I am born of Caiyha, born of Siku, born of Semele. I shed my home as easily as I shed my skin. I shed my friends and allow new friends to grow upon me, I nurture what touches the earth I am born to love. I am the earth. I am that upon which the creatures under my jurisdiction can rely upon for an eternity. I move so slowly I cast no one into the abyss. I am here for an eternity , She recited. She repeated the incantation over and over as her hands spread through the grass toward the colours that lit the sky. The sparks of fire that defied the sky and moon, that said “We can light up the world too” she giggled at the thought, imagining little lips in the center of each explosion mocking Syna and Leth. Reds, blues, oranges and yellows poured over her, kissing her skin as gently as the words spilled from her mouth upon them.

I am born of Caiyha, born of Siku, born of Semele. I shed my home as easily as I shed my skin. I shed my friends and allow new friends to grow upon me, I nurture what touches the earth I am born to love. I am the earth. I am that upon which the creatures under my jurisdiction can rely upon for an eternity. I move so slowly I cast no one into the abyss. I am here for an eternity

I am born of Caiyha, born of Siku, born of Semele. I shed my home as easily as I shed my skin. I shed my friends and allow new friends to grow upon me, I nurture what touches the earth I am born to love. I am the earth. I am that upon which the creatures under my jurisdiction can rely upon for an eternity. I move so slowly I cast no one into the abyss. I am here for an eternity

I am born of Caiyha, born of Siku, born of Semele. I shed my home as easily as I shed my skin. I shed my friends and allow new friends to grow upon me, I nurture what touches the earth I am born to love. I am the earth. I am that upon which the creatures under my jurisdiction can rely upon for an eternity. I move so slowly I cast no one into the abyss. I am here for an eternity

Ayszel gazed about her, fearful of the encroaching darkness. She stuck her tongue out, seeking the comforting scent of the horses and smelled nothing. It was as if the world had gone dark. I am blind! I am blind! She cried, clutching herself. She could see faces in the darkness, moving about and behind her. “Caiyha?! Siku? …..Semele? I haven’t forgotten you. I pledge myself to you. I’ll never forget you…” She cried out into the darkness.

I will never go back… She thought, Never return to the family that betrayed me, but I promise Siku, I promise you I will never betray my home. she swore to herself, fearful of the goddesses revenge for all the things she had thought about Zinrah the past season. Laying prostrate upon her stomach Ayszel gazed fearfully at the darkness. My magic is for the three great ladies alone and I shall never use it to serve another people or another city. She swore as she stretched her arm before her and drew the dull eating blade across her abdomen, between two of her ribs. [/i]I will care for this land as I once cared for my home; I will defend it with sinew for Caiyha, coil for Siku and love for Semele. I will serve and care for the snakes and creatures in the caverns of this land, and the caverns themselves with the geomancy granted to me by Semele. I will never turn away from a Dhani in need, I swear to you Siku, though I have left my home I will never leave my people. I will one day bear many snakelings in your honour and teach them your ways [/i] she swore, drawing another below the first across the slips of blood that had begun to pool from the slit scales above it. and lastly, I swear that any home in which I live will have an effigy carved in each of your images, as we mortals can understand them. She swore and she drew the last deep mark upon herself, marking the three great promises she made to the three great ladies.

The colours were still dripping down from the sky above her and as the pain from her side spread like the shocking streaks of flame from the fireworks. The darkness slithered in around her, claiming her mind and her eyes for the rest of the night.

[Ayszel]

.

41rst

"Oww…." she moaned when she awoke, raising her aching head from the grass. A pool of blood had stained the green grass a deep purple spreading out from her side and from her head where she had hit it when she had passed out. The sun had been what woke the young woman, its long loud shafts breaking through the haze of her heavy darkened state. Slowly, she pressed her palms into the wet grass and heaved herself up. "Too fast!" she muttered aloud as a wave of nausea rose in her stomach and threatened to spill from her lips.

After some time she was able to remaining upright without her stomach heaving and looked around the brightly lit scene, wearily gathering her bearings. The camp was a ways away from her, a cold black smudge on the horizon as the fire had died out long ago. The two leopard printed horses were dots in the distance near the water bank she had been following since she had left Zinrah. Raising her hand to her head to feel the wound she tried to remember the previous night.

There were colours… She remembered first as her hand felt over her scalp, I was reading… She decided, glancing at the grimoire that had been flung away from her body sometime during the night. It seemed relatively safe although one edge of the paper were stained a faint red where her bloody fingers had obviously grazed it. What happened? Why do I fe- Her stomach heaved and she leaned over to vomit. Having not eaten much in days little more than froth emerged. But what else she saw in the vomit made her blanch. It was several small leaves, only partially digested. The game here was different, more wary than the game at home and she hadn't been able to eat a decent meal in some time so she had been using heavily herbed tea to keep her stomach from shouting too loudly.

She didn't recognize the leaves and none of the plants would give up their secrets to her. They created poisons to keep from being eaten and she was as much a threat as a herbivore despite her mark. Besides, to a plant it was as normal as producing the other variety of enzymes and proteins they created and thus had no sense of self with which to warn the young sorceress of their noxious qualities. Though Ayszel had no idea or knowledge of the reasoning or intricacies of why she could not sense such things she was certainly aware of the limitations of her powers. The jungle was after all a place with as many poisonous species as harmless species. She had assumed the species here would be as dangerous and she knew she was playing the lottery every time she plucked one. In an attempt to sway the game in her favour she ate only what the horses ate with relish and didn't seem harmed by. Evidently that was not always the case. Why do they affect us differently? We digest it differently? I ate larger quantities compared to my mass? She speculated.

As her stomach receded into a quiet gurgling monster the marks on her side began to ache and she pressed a hand to them her tongue slithering out with twitching annoyance. It was the only part of the night she remembered clearly, the oathes she had made to Caiyha. Perhaps it was Caiyhas magic that allowed me to remember…she didn't want me to forget the promises I made to her… she looked up almost expecting to see the goddess. Glancing about she looked to the horses and caught sight of the shimmering towers that marked the presence of Lhavit. That was where the colours had come from… she thought faintly, though she was sure they had not existed but rather been a figment of her delirium it must have been a message sent by Caiyha, in all the colours of the mark she bore.

Home is where the heart is… She whispered a swell filling her chest. For the first time since she had left she was happy. Until she leaned over, dark green vomit coating her arm as she choked out the poisonous plant.

[Ayszel]

.

Several bells passed before she was had vomited all that was in her stomach. I need some water… even her mental voice croaked with thirst. Seeking out the minds of the horses she gently pressed herself into them, urging them toward her. It was still unfamiliar, the minds of mammals compared to those of amphibians and reptiles and moss which she had spent most of her powers in Zinrah. It was warmer and more playful, but certainly much more difficult to communicate with. A reptile herself with her powers she thought and moved like a reptile, easily placing herself in their skin. The horses were beyond her control, though not beyond persuasion. Fortunately, it was noon and the horses had evidently had enough to drink that they slowly meandered their way back to her.

The smaller of the two was much more heavily dappled, her face rounder and sweeter than the face of the other. She had long lashes that she often ticked Ayszel with when she decided the young woman had slept in too long. She was as stubborn and lazy as she was playful though and was the most difficult to pack each time they moved out. The other was considerably taller and primarily white with only as many speckles as stones in the dirt of the forest floor. Her face was sharper and angular, a quality Ayszel found more appealing and familiar. Neither had a name, for she felt no need for names, each had their own unique presence upon her consciousness. Names were derived from ones family and were reserved for sentient beings, and as much as the creatures felt and experienced they were not the same as Dhani.

She didn't need to consider them the same to believe that they deserved some level of honour however. It had been an argument between her and the snakelings in Zinrah for some time, they didn’t understand how she could honour those creatures that the race believed so inherently inferior to them. She didn't care for individual creatures, but for the environment and world around her. Individual creatures had to die, reproduce, be hunted, be killed by disease to honour the health and quality of the entirety. It was what she had learned when she was marked. The home mattered more than those within it, it was a lesson every Dhani lived by.

When they reached her Ayszel slowly to grasp the mane of the taller horse only to find that her muscles, though they tensed did not respond how they should. Looking down she saw the long two legs that spread out from her waist. Her skin was a deep coppery colour. Copper?! Her eyes widened. What is this?! What do I bear?! I look like a Myrian! I see differently?! She noticed for the first time. The world was not full of the delightful scents and heat that her world had been marked with before. She was blind and yet she could see. Colours spilled about her more brightly than ever, the grass moved across her skin differently, black curling hair spilled over her shoulders over breasts with more plumpness and movement than those that had been covered in scales in her Dhani form. She gazed up at the horses who were sniffing her suspiciously, as if they themselves didn't quite trust what they saw despite her presence in their minds.

Slowly she tangled her fingers in the rough hair of the nearest horse and leaning into its fur she pulled herself up, legs dangling uselessly beneath her. She had never ridden before, never had much use for it, her dhani and snake form where too large to allow for it and her form was strong and competent enough to carry her the long distances most people used horses for anyway. Though her stomach quaked at the thought of riding down to the river she glanced down at the useless appendages beneath her. They felt so separate, so distant to her. What are these useless things? She asked herself, searching for the sense of self in her tail and finding it missing. She would have laid down and wept right then and there if she hadn't been so weak from thirst, the water inside her having been dragged out over the grass in both her blood and vomit and the rest absorbed by her body in an attempt to fight off the poison that she had ingested.

It was a like an amputee with a prosthetic leg, it didn't belong to her, they weren't alive. I must ride…they must be my legs this time.. she cursed. Fortunately, she thought, I am still strong. it was the only redeeming quality that gave her the courage to pull herself up. Though she felt weak compared to her other forms her thick wide shoulders, far thicker and wider than any Myrian woman, she was still strong enough to pull herself over the back of the creature. The horse braced herself against the weight, legs buckling slightly under the weight of the Dhani. Repositioning, the creature braced its legs more sturdily into the ground. She glanced at the unfamiliar presence on her back. She had been pulled from her home for the first time just like Ayszel and yet here was this creature she had never seen before attempting to mount her. She wasn't sure what to make of it, Ayszel sensed the confusion in the back of her mind where her head connected to her spine, where she sensed all animals. She sensed plants in a slightly different place, a slightly lower place, near the back of her neck. The other little mare didn't even glance up, her mouth was instead pressed firmly into a bunch of bushes, tearing leaves and twigs, filling her mouth so full she could hardly chew.

[Ayszel]

.

Finally Ayszel sat, one leg on either side of the horse. She had never seen anyone ride a horse before either but it seemed to make the most sense. It certainly felt uncomfortable to lay on her stomach and she couldn't very well stand on the creatures back. Imagining the babbling brook the horses had just come from she pressed the need into the horses mind. While she could only interpret and not cover up what came from the creatures reasoning forebrain she could press a need and a desire into their amygdala. Glancing back at her slowly she eventually stepped forward and, fortunately, very slowly made her way down the hill toward the water. Despite the slowness Ayszel was still almost unseated and had to lean forward and wrap her arms around the creature’s neck to keep from toppling off.

Oh…I think I am going to be sick again… she decided as each heavy footfall jostled her stomach more. The horse never broke more than a slow amble, her laziness making her heavy on her forelegs as she descended the slight hill jerking Ayszel further and further forward in her seat.

By the time they reached the water’s edge Ayszel was thoroughly shaken and the horses left shoulder was soaked in vomit. Stopping at the edge of the water the horse snorted and lowered her muzzle to drag her whiskers along the top curiously. Though she was hock deep in the water it was clear she didn't intend to go any further. Ayszel gazed at the water and swallowed slowly. Her throat wept with joy at the sight but it was tempered by the insecurity of getting off the creature. Tangling her fingers in the long mane she slowly ran one leg up the horses side and over the croup until she was laying horizontal. Slowly, she lowered herself down her side her legs giving out as they touched the rocky bottom of the slow river. It meandered along the top of the mountain with as much intent as a puddle, Ayszel had yet to know the waterfall it would become further upstream.

Inside darted a little school of fish, white suckers and a variety of other minnows moving away from her imposition. Meanwhile she shuddered when her toes touched the water. Sucking in her breath sharply, through lips she had never before had she fell into the cold pool. The water only came up to her ribcage but still it stole her breath. Her face had never before been so agile, and so it darted and twisted in response to the cold and she wouldn't have thought to hide it even if there had been someone there. She was so used to physical communication coming from the body, not from the face, thus her body twisted much more elaborately than any other human responding to cold water would have. Seeping through the layers of skin and muscle to her bones it was a natural numbing solution. Why is it so cold?! she exclaimed. The source of water she had always presumed to be the ocean in Zinrah never left the water this cold.

Maybe the heat warms it in Zinrah? She pondered, markedly and purposefully not calling it home though the h had been on her metaphorical lips. She had thought passively on what caused the white tipped top of the mountains but with no real seriousness and couldn't fathom that the cold water could come from giant glaciers of ice. She began by scrubbing the dirt from her coppery legs, though they were so alien she could hardly make sense of the sensations she felt from her own hands. Eventually her hand explored the three deep cuts on her side and scrubbed the vomit and dirt that had wedged themselves inside of her while she had lain prone.

The numb of the water made it easier to scrape it clean. Her palms were soft with their new skin and were not made to clean away debris like her scales would have been. Now that time had passed and the panic had begun to fade she was able to think more clearly. She cast her memory back trying to remember when she had seen a Dhani in human form. Xen..he's the only one I ever saw in human form very often… she thought, his violet eyes boring into the her head. She knew it was a natural form of the Dhani but it certainly didn't feel natural and it reminded her far too much of the Myrians. She would soon learn the value of the form but as it stood it seemed a pitiful addition to the forms with which she had become accustomed.

[Ayszel]

.

It was very different when I learned my Dhani form… she reminisced, She hadn't been asleep the first time she had experienced her Dhani form. It had happened suddenly, she had been reaching for a sibling in a game of tag, her head lunging forward for him. But instead of a head lunging forward she had been brought up short by a quaking in her center. She remembered the first time she had felt the shifting beneath her skin. The peculiar and disconcerning lack of control over her own body, the first time she hadn't been in control of herself.

Now…I've know what it's like to be out of control…

Her bones and skin had stretched throughout her reassembling and growing into her adolescent form.

Is it this form that then makes me a woman? she wondered, interrupting herself…Becoming a woman certainly can't be marked by such a weak and pathetic form… she scolded herself, but a feeling remained in her gut that she had stumbled upon a truth she just dare not admit yet.

She had shrunk in length and been replaced with a form that was so beyond that which she had yet experienced. She would forever love her snake form, the form that had made her feel more a part of the jungle than anything else before her Caiyha mark. But this form had fingers, could reach, could wrestle, could draw and read and do all the experiments and duties she watched her mother doing each day. The world opened itself to her when she had become Dhani.

What could this form possibly open up for me? She questioned hottily, I have all I desire, legs cannot be compared to the tail of a serpent

She laid back into the cold water and winced as it slipped up her arms, over her chest making her nipples rise in protest. Gently she lay her curling black hair into the water and stretched her fingers through them rubbing out the filth. What a hassle… She grimaced as she cleaned the blood and vomit from it. Dirt mattered little as a snake, sometimes it actually helped or was necessary. In this form it was just sticky, itchy and unpleasant. Eventually she had cleaned every last inch of her and just in time, her teeth were starting to chatter, with the chattering came the realization of the newly shaped tongue.

Slowly she ran the thick plump awkward thing over her lips and wiggled it in the air tasting curiously. Nothing. Retreating she ran it over her scale like teeth and almost smiled. Though she hated the senseless thing the teeth were shaped like the scales that had decorated her body. Maybe all them humans really come from reptiles after all and Siku simply stole all their scales from them and transplanted them to their mouth so they'd always remember what they lost and lose all they had. the idea made her giggle the constant sense of superiority raised in all Dhani stretching a little.

Dragging herself out of the pebbles she winced as they shifted under her weight pinching her fingers and scratching the back of her thighs. Groaning frustrated at her helplessness she grasped the mares mane again. It was much more difficult to pull her soaking wet form onto the horse. Thankfully the little mare was completely placid and put up with her awkward squirming. The cold water had done her much good and she shook herself, like she saw other mammals do, though did not find it particularly pleasant or helpful as her long hair slapped against her face and breasts.

Picturing the camp she nudged the horse with her mind back to camp. Though her side still ached the pain in her stomach had settled and the long draughts of water she had taken had soothed her throat and filled her painfully empty stomach.

It was early noon by the time she made it back to the campsite. What now? It’s much chillier in this form and I don’t have any clothes…how do I change back? She wondered. It was like stretching a new muscle. Once you found out how to do it it came easily she had been told but until you did it, it was tricky to get just the right movement.

[Ayszel]

.

If I bind my side before I change...I'll rip whatever bandage I manage to find... Ayszel realized. Closing her eyes she moved within herself, as if she were searching for res. If my soul is hiding here...maybe my identity is too? She queried. While she grinned, thinking of her good fortune, when she saw the familiar snake faced woman kneeling before a black pool of water. She was divorced of her sense of self. In this form, she was 'other' and had great disdain for the body. Little did she know, it was the body she would be spending her foreseeable future in.

Slowly, she stepped along the marble black floor of her inside. The surface was cold and slightly foreign in its unyielding presence. In her other forms the darkness was silky and slippery, like oil. Standing behind the massive kneeling form she placed her palms on the knots of muscles stretching over the dhani's back. It felt odd, to see herself in this light, and as she spread her fingers along the sinew her hand disappeared into the form. Like disappearing into a ghost. Her hand felt warm, like it was creeping towards a fire. Slowly she submerged her arm completely into the form of her other self. How natural it feels...to slip into another body... she thought with a sigh of relief as the rest of her body plunged forward.

As she opened her eyes into her inner soul a blinding light of gold struck her so vividly she almost keeled backward. The black pond had become effervescent with watery res. Home... The pain in her side forced her from the black halls and into the green pasture.

Leaning over Ayszel peered at the gouge. The healers in Zinrah had always dealt with such things. She had never even tied a brace or bandage to a bleed. So, she stared at it blankly for several more bells. It had stopped bleeding at some point and the thin slashes were clotting all on their own. However, they were full of grass and dirt from her nighttime terrors. It was fortunate the wounds weren't life threatening, though she certainly could have used stitches, because her ignorance left her with little treatment choice.

A brief perusal of the travelers guide did nothing to inform her and after some bells, when the bleeding hadn't restarted and the pain had begun to subside, she decided it was best left to its own devices.

[Ayszel]

.

Leaning back against one of the packs she drew the Grimoire to her, resting it on a coil of tail to prop it up near her eyes. A human form can’t do THIS… she grinned as her tail created a nice propped table to read off of. She had pressed all of the plants she had eaten since beginning the journey into the leaves of the book to dry and preserve. She had never had the artistic hand her mother had had and had given up even attempting to the impressively accurate sketches of plants her mother had inscribed onto the paper. Though she dare not make any notes in the grimoire that were not full entries, not without her own seal to press into the paper to immortalize her contribution, she remembered each plant distinctly for its scent.

The last plant she had made into a tea was a purple lily-like creation, sitting placidly on the watery surface of a small lake. The leaves had been juicy and thick with a bitter tasting syrup that Ayszel had quickly discarded. The petals however were almost as thick and plump with a much sweeter translucent liquid. It had only taken a single petal to sweeten the entire teacup. Thank Siku I didn’t add anymore! The rest of the herbs in the tea had been those she had tried earlier and those from Zinrah, So they are most likely safe…unless they upset my stomach by combining with this flower… Ayszel pondered, I’ll have to make sure to only add new plant to my tea at a time… She decided decisively, Luck may not always have me…

Next…food she decided, as her stomach announced its unhappiness. Taking up the traveler’s book she perused its contents offhandedly. She had little interest in the meanderings of a human mind, and the common was significantly difficult enough that she browsed the contents looking for a word or two of interest rather than pursuing the tiring job of deciphering the language. Finally she had flickered over a page that described a contraption he had seen used by several fisherman in a city, Riverfall… she read, skipping the next couple sentences and looking for more information on the device.

A simple sketch showed a cylindrical cage with inwardly tapering openings. The next image showed the edges of a lake with several dots to indicate the location of the cages and a picture showing the fish swimming into the cage. Can’t they get out? Ayszel wondered, it certainly didn’t look that complicated. However, the tiny fish in pools beneath Zinrah had been some of the first animals Ayszel had hunted as a Snakeling and she was familiar with their unique levels of stupidity. While their role in Zinrah’s ecosystem was clear and considerable, she couldn’t help the condescending smirk they elicited with their amusing antics.

I can make this… Ayszel decided, I have no shortage of motivation…in contrast to materials Ayszel thought as her stomach rumbled again.