Private Tales A Monstrous Truth

[Maranae]

The maw yawned. Shafts of golden light fell down the throat of what might, once, have been the portal to a mine adit. Motes of dust danced in the light filtering in, gold specks that danced against a black backdrop. Despite the angle, the light eventually found itself swallowed by darkness.

Mara regarded the lynx with no outward suspicion or alarm. The way it communicated with her made her curious, but as a rule she was not afraid of wild things. It was people that made her wary, made her ill at ease. It was humans and elves that had done awful things here, and continued to do awful things to her after that escape. The memory of the Nordenfiir that had aided in her escape was only a whisper in her mind, now; she wondered if he had managed to find his way home or not.

"All are d-dead, here," she replied in spoken voice. The tips of fangs poked from under her upper and lower lips, the strange way they came and went as disconcerting as many of the other traits baked into what she was, now. "I..."

She had killed them. The memories were buried be beneath layers of protective fog, deliberately hidden from her own mind. Regardless, she knew that she had killed them all. The screams of their dying haunting her sleep, whenever she could find time for such a thing. Their blood was on her hands, painted a part of the design that made her a monster. A thing to loathe.

"Mar...I just want to know," she said softly. "Want to know what.. what I am." There was something steely in her quiet and hesitant declaration.

 

[Fauna]

The lynx walked silently beside the woman, regarding the deepening chasm. The light died quickly past the threshold. The darkness would give up no secrets here.

Fauna looked at Mara as she spoke, one ear turned to her voice, the other back towards the cavern.

"All are d-dead, here,"

She was right. The air within was dead. The walls of black rock were dead. Fauna could pick up no sound from the entrance or within, and the only scent was that of the forest. They peered closer at Mara. Where those... fangs? The lynx blinked slowly. How curious.

This place apparently held a key to Mara's identity, and Fauna had to admit that they themselves were very interested. She was an anomaly, a piece that did not fit. The world was changing quicker than ever, but nothing yet had fallen quite so far outside of the natural shape.

They started to walk into the darkness, and felt the ground begin to slope down. Mara wanted to know what she was.

|As do I|

 

[Maranae]

The darkness was oppressive. She could remember the last time she had been down here, even if she did not want to remember it; departing the darkness of the only home she had ever known to hunt, only to return to a place where only ghosts were company. The making of those ghosts was not a thing she liked to think on at all.

The passage had a smooth floor, descending very slowly. The place had been a mine, once, perhaps; whatever vein of ore those long gone miners had chased into the depths of the earth was long gone. Some years later, it had found a new purpose.

Darkness. To her eyes, it was bright enough in here for her to easily and fearlessly make her way down into the depths. Many hundreds of feet below lay the first level of this place, passages extending right and left.

But now that they had descended a bit further into the darkness, there were other details to note. An odd and unpleasant scent in the air, sharp even after a year. The cloying edge of it was gone, but the spicy aromor of rot and decay still lingered. Just not ripe, as it had been when she was last here.

They passed corpse on the slope leading down, bones gnawed by rats. It was clear the victim had died by violence by the shattered bones from the clavicle down through the sternum.

"I...do not like this place," she said suddenly. Her eyes shone oddly, like those of wild animal caught in lantern light. "Maybe the bad people came back," she said. She didn't really believe it, though.

 

[Fauna]

With pupils dilated to their full width, Fauna was able to see relatively well in the darkness, though it was becoming more difficult by the moment as they went down, down, and down. The floor was very smooth. Unnaturally smooth, and it felt awkward and hard under their large paws.

They wrinkled their nose at the scent of decay. Lynx would scavenge if needed, but they preferred live prey. Certainly, anything dead for so long was unpalatable to even the hardiest creature. The wounds on the carcass were grave. Something of great size and strength was surely responsible. The image of a bear came to mind.

|Nothing living is here, save for the scavengers|

They could not sense anything larger than the rats, but this place seemed to hinder their senses. Such unnatural shapes clouded vision. Nevertheless, they sought to calm Mara. Only she could answer the questions Fauna had.

There would be more death ahead, for the scent only grew thicker. Something else was there, peaking out from the shadows. Human-made structures, perhaps. Tools, perhaps?

 

[Maranae]

It became, for a brief time, a trip through shredded, tattered remnants of a nightmare. It might have been a year gone by - a full fifth of her short life - but the emotional scars of that brief period still haunted her. She could taste the blood on her lips, feel it slick and hot on her hands.

The landing at the bottom of the passage was littered with leafy detritus and cracked bones. The nature of these, at least, was animal; deer, rabbit, prey animals of varying size had all ended their journey here. Darkness stretched away left and right, a drift level of an old mine. The floors had been smoothed out, and dark lamps hung on either side of the corridor. Many were broken.

"I..." she began in a low, breathy whisper. Whatever it was she was going to say never came; instead, she headed down the left corridor without a word. The movements were precise and held a predatory sleekness to them without any sense of urgency. Mara trailed a hand along the wall, long nails - were those claws? - dragging along rough cut stone.

No. Those weren't claws. Just a trick if the light. Even though, here at least, there was no light.

She moved surely along the passage, ignoring yawning portals into funkier darkness, only stopping at the first sprawled skeleton that was not of animal origin. It was humanoid, and had died a violent death, evidenced by broken bones and a missing arm that was, yes, over there on the other side of the corridor. Scavengers had not touched the remains much, and what flesh had not rotted off had mummified in the dey air.

Mara stared at it silently, on the edge of tears.

 

[Fauna]

Fauna could not recall their birth, they had simply existed. It is likely that they had come into being as the forest grew. At first they were little more than a thought. A whisp-like, incorporeal essence. As the eons passed and the forest swelled, so too did Fauna assume a more concrete shape. A more real existence.

They could not sympathize with Maranae. They were not burdened with questions of why or who or how they were.

I am Fauna. I am of the forest.

They knew this to be true, and it was all they needed. Nevertheless, they were not completely ignorant of the girl’s emotions. She was a creature out of place, brought there through no fault of her own. Like a bird blown off course, she sought to make sense of a strange and dangerous place.

And how strange it was. The darkness was overwhelming now, so much that the lynx’s eyes could scarcely make out the details of the cave. Unable to clearly see Mara, they could feel her.

From time to time an animal presence seemed to well up around her. It was not fully formed, and it did not stay, but it was very confusing to the spirit. It was as if large, frightened animals were phasing in and out of existence right before them.

The passages continued, and total darkness reigned. The lynx was no longer useful, and so with a momentary sound of rushing wind and water, a small bat had taken its place. It fluttered into the air and sent out scores of inaudible clicks. Suddenly the caverns were clear as day, as were the skeletal remains.

Fauna flew to a wall and clung to the rough stone, looking down on the scene with sonic eyes.

|Do you recall what happened here?| The voice asked. They could see the look on Mara’s face. |Do you know this human?|

 

[Maranae]

A flash of bright steel, and then the distant sting of some unfamiliar sensation. Pain? It was pain, thought of as the conceptual truth with no words to describe it. She did not recognize words. She barely conceptualized a self, only just this side of self awareness.

Livid fluid dappled the ground, smeared as she scrambled back. "Fight! You are supposed to be violent! Why will you not fight?" A voice, noises made in a specific pattern. Words, but without sense.

"Yes. No. Mara does not know." The words were s breathy whisper. She knew the man, knew his scent and mannerisms, but not his name or anything else about him. It was not out of regard for him as a person that she shed tears, now. Even now, even a year later, did the fires burn, of resentment, fear, and above all, hatred.

"I...I killed them all. Down here. Killed all if them." More tears. "Mara would take it back if she could. I would. But they would not stop, would not." Hurting her, forcing her to fight when she did not want to. Forcing their sorcery upon her, treating her like an animal. Inhuman. Disposable.

Because I am a monster. For killing them, she was little different to the wild things that preyed on men. The notion was terrifying to her, and the only part of her that relished it was some dark thing deep in her head.

 

[Fauna]

The bat on the wall continued to echolocate. It could tell the look on Maranae’s face, but its sensitive ears picked up every tremor in her voice. Fear, rage. Simple emotions, things Fauna understood. They aided in piecing together this place, and the woman herself.

They had known Mara less than an hour, but she had made no effort to conceal her intentions. Yes, there were secrets within her, and Fauna still tried to interpret the faint animal auras that came and went, but on the surface Mara seemed to be... shockingly simple.

She was frightened and confused. It was likely she had felt the same way when she had killed these humans. An animal was not evil for acting out of fear. Fear was self-preservation. Self-preservation was key. Fauna themselves had not ventured into the wide world beyond their grove sheerly out of curiosity. The chipping away of the forests had been mild thus far, but they felt it eating at them. Should the forests wane further, they would likely diminish as well.

All the more reason to get to the bottom of this blight.

|Do not regret, child| the voice returned. Was child correct? She seemed full size but still bore features of youth. No matter. |We must fight those who would do us harm.|

A thought occured to them. Mara seemed to have broken memories of this place, as if she were here... but not here. The tricks of the light with her features, the animal auras... could it be...

|Was it truly you who killed them| it began again. |Or was it another?|

 

[Maranae]

Vivid images, locked away in the de pop ths of her mind. The doors sealing them away were solid, stout, and unbreakable. She hoped anyway. The creature that was with her...

For a moment, she wondered at it. A thing unlike any she had met before, capable of speaking in her head. Capable of changing what it was at seeming random. It smelled...

Forest, pine needles, mulch, fur, rabbit, trees, grass sun watercloudsdeerrainwind...

She gasped aloud. The senses were overwhelming and confusing beyond her experience. She started to swoon a moment, caught herself on the wall...and then swallowed hard, steadying herself.

"Yesss," she said as she exhaled. "I do not like...speak it, but Mara did.' Driven by fear and uncertainty and some deep animal instinct that overrode her humanity. Instinct was too strong for human inclination, especially when humanity was something that was socialized into a person, and not instinctive in the least.

All of her socialization had been fleeing from killers and mercenaries, or else being brutally experimented upon. There was something else, too, hazy and distant, but the shape of it was too blurred to be made out. A pair of faces, and an unfamiliar sensation.

"What are you," she asked suddenly. It was a strangely on point question, quite unlike her normal line. The world was new, after all, with many things to learn.

But Fauna fit no category she knew, limited as those categories were.

 

[Fauna]

Mara’s answer did not surprise them, but it still left questions unanswered. They would need to be answered at another time. The girl was upset and confused, it would be cruel to push further.

The bodies that were left bore wounds that a human could not inflict. Their metal weapons could kill with ease, this was known, but they were cleaner. Unnatural. These bodies had been savaged. If Maranae had indeed killed them as she seemed to believe, well, Fauna was very interested to find out how.

Then Mara asked a question. It was a question that Fauna was not fully prepared to answer.

What are you?

The words lingered. What am I? I am me. But how did one describe oneself to another? Many creatures relied on their physical forms for identity, but Fauna was fluid, and this did not define them. In fact, they had never met another being quite like them, and thus found it surprisingly difficult to categorize themselves.

|I am of the forest| the voice stated plainly.

A pause. This explanation did not seem adequate. Words were a clumsy tool for a concept so broad.

|Let me show you.|

Fauna concentrated, closing their tiny eyes to focus. In lieu of words, they attempted to push images into Mara’s mind. A deep forest grove with a sparkling creek running through it. All around it were animals. Deer, rabbits, spiders, birds, snakes, gnats, fish, salamanders… they all shone as clear as day. All of them glowed, turned to mist, and began to coalesce into a singular swirling point. Two eyes opened, and the swirling mist took the form of a deer, then a bear, then a snake, then a dragonfly.

A new scene, and the amorphous cloud drifted through the forest. Ethereal lines connected it to every creature like a massive spider’s web. The connections themselves twisted around each other, and formed the shape of a woman.

The images ceased, and Fauna felt a fatigue come over them. They had never attempted to communicate in such a way before, and they hoped it had been successful. They flew to Mara and clung to the loose fabric that covered her chest.

|I am all creatures, and all creatures are me. I am their image.|

They hoped Mara would understand.