Fable - Ask Beneath the Sands

[Noor]

Somewhere near the Seret Mountains...

A lizard cautiously poked his scaly head out of a small gap in the hoodoo and tentatively let his tongue taste the hot air. It hesitated for a second then scurried out, clinging to the tall spire and lettings its eyes roll around its surroundings. Nothing moved above or below but that did not mean it was safe. Unfortunately, nature called, and it was desperate enough for water now that it would chance the run. In a burst of speed it leapt from the safety of the hoodoo onto the sand and scurried for all it was worth towards a cluster of cacti.

In the distance a fin sliced through the sandbanks then vanished again.

The hero watched this all with the calm patience of a hunter. The kill was not about how quickly it was done but how well it was done. The people of her lands liked trophies and it was a lot harder to make a trophy of a monster when it was too badly damaged. Killing in an elegant manner was part of the sport and she was good.

The lizard had made it to the cacti and drank hungrily from a small hole it had gnawed into the tough side. But it wasn't just the hero who watched the lizards movements. From the shadows the rocky spires cast, the desert cat prowled forward. It looked almost sickly with its ribs showing and its coat patchy in places. Clearly, the lizard was the closest thing to a meal it had seen in some time but hunger made a being reckless. The lizard paused, scenting the air, and then jumped a second before the cat. Was ensued next was chaos. Sand flew upwards as the pair chased through the onlooking hoodoos, over rocks, through the cacti patch and over the odd half buried shape of some long ago city. Eventually the cat won out and it lay down panting to tear into its meal. It didn't even hear the beast coming.

A giant maw opened up beneath the cat and all but swallowed it whole.

This was her chance.

Drawing her blade, Noor leapt from her perch onto the worm-like beast and drove it down into what on a normal beast would have been its neck. The worm roared, revealing rows of jagged teeth and it flailed in the air in an attempt to dislodge its assailant. Noor drove the blade in as deeply as she could then twisted. Black blood oozed from the piercing on the creatures main artery but it would not be enough to kill it. Letting go two wings sprouted from her back and she let herself free fall off the beast. She soared back to where she had been waiting and grabbed up a large spear. With it she spun and then launched it into the still screaming animals maw. The whole animal seemed to tremble before crashing down onto the sounds, twitching.

 

[Rahma]

Hunt or be hunted. That was the order of nature as Rahma understood it. He'd been raised by the streets of Salitra rather than the wilderness of Amol-Kalit, but the concept of hunting was never a particularly difficult concept for him to grasp. In fact, being out in nature tended to feel more comfortable to Rahma than being in the environment he was raised in. Odd, but something he always chalked up to having something to do with the jackal bits that grew from his otherwise humanoid anatomy.

The sands called sometimes. Ragash was a big, beautiful, glistening beacon of affluence and prosperity and gods did it just make him want to retch after awhile. Now and again Rahma just liked to go for a bit of a wander. A bit of solitude, some time to breathe, and eventually he would be in the right mindset to move on to whatever odd job Medja had ready for him next.

Of course, Rahma was never so fortunate as to get his way. Even in the middle of nowhere, among the fairy chimneys and cacti, there had to be someone already occupying the space. Thankfully they at least put on a good show. The demi-jackal had seen the whole thing from his perch among the rocks; it was an impressive feat regardless, but it was the hunter's wings that had really caught Rahma's attention. Ordinarily he'd never go out of his way to make introductions with a woman, but this was too curious not to inspect.

Rahma deftly hopped down from the rocks, some hundred yards out, and began his approach. He'd offer a wave on his way there, making sure to show he bore no ill will; bandits and raiders were common out here after all.

"Impressive kill," Rahma remarked as he finally got within a comfortable distance. "Don't know many that'd go making prey outta those things."

Not much of a greeting, but Rahma never did fancy himself the charismatic type.

 

[Noor]

The Huntress had heard tales of the beasts being able to fake their own demise to lure another creature into its maw so, she approached with caution on feather light feet. Her first test was standing on the beasts pale, worm-like flesh, but it did not move beneath her. Noor cocked her head and listened, tried to feel for any pulse beneath her feet, but nothing made itself known. Either this was a very clever beast or--

She spun towards the voice and quietly cursed herself for letting her focus become so narrow. She was arrogant to think she had had the desert sands to herself. Life always found a way out here and it never limited itself to simple lizards. Realising her hand clasped the handle of one of the curved blades she wore strapped to her back in a criss-cross between her wings, she made herself let it go. The odd being before her was not one she knew but if it walked these lands and was not of her own kin, it was no threat. With a sniff she gave him one more glance then continued her walk up the creatures spine; she wanted her other sword back.

"I have tired of the easier prey. Skills grow stale if they are not tested appropriately. I will warn you, if you have come to try and claim the body for your own trophy," she laid a hand on the hilt of the sword and wrenched it free. "I will kill you."

 

[Rahma]

Jumpy, this one. Thankfully not so jumpy that she would immediately go for the throat. Still, that reaction...here Rahma thought he'd try being the genial one for once.
"Tch...what a peach you are." His shoulders slumped a bit and he let his brow furrow while his arms folded across his chest. Fine then, she'd get regular Rahma.

"I ain't interested in your sand worm, peachy. Just thought I'd give a greeting to a fellow wanderer. Besides," He returned, looking down the bridge of his nose at the young woman. The corner of the demi-jackal's lip upturned into an ivory-fanged smirk, glinting in the sunlight. "Think I'd put up a bit more of a fight than the blind, limbless slug you just put down."

 

[Noor]

Noor's wings disturbed a layer of sand, whipping it up into the air around them, as she came to land in front of the odd creature. He looked like a statue of one of the false deities the villages around here worshipped. Were his kind also descended of the Gods like her own? She ran her eyes over him critically and then dismissed that motion; he didn't have the bearings of her brethren. If he wasn't one of her people though, it made him fair game. She was certain one of the small children would enjoy his ears on their wall. Perhaps they could even add it to a doll.

"Perhaps," she drew a kerchief from her trouser pocket and cleaned her blade. She needed to know more about him before taking him as a trophy though. "Are all your kind... wanderers? Are there others of you?" a pack would certainly be interesting to take down.

Beneath their feet the sands began to subtly move.

 

[Rahma]

And so the winged woman deigned to touch the ground. Rahma let a "hmmph" leave his throat, a puff of air jetting from his nostrils. He could sense her judging him as she scanned him over. He could practically feel the air of dismissal. Rahma hated that feeling. The demi-jackal plopped his butt down onto the sand and rested his arms over his knees. May as well get comfortable.

Then she posed her question. Rahma blinked. He wasn't quite sure how to answer that.
"Don't know what you mean by 'my kind,' peachy," He returned, annoyance on his tongue. He brushed a stray lock of white hair out of his eyes, watching carefully as she touted her weapon. "I'm from Salitra, and they ain't nomads but there are plenty of 'em. If you're talkin' about my species or whatever, ain't got a clue."

He'd pondered over that question many times. Were there more like him? He'd have to know what he was first in order to best answer that. So far no one had been able to tell him. Some kind of beastfolk half-breed was the best anyone had been able to surmise so far, but that didn't really stack up.

One of Rahma's upper ears twitched. A small vibration ran up his form, from seated stem to his extremities. Something was stirring, maybe. His senses always seemed to be on overdrive. "Stupid sensitive," the humans and even Abtati had told him before. It could've been nothing, or it could've been those stupid sensitive senses stimulating his survival instincts. He glanced at the ground, then back at the girl.
"...You feel that?"

 

[Noor]

Noor's lips turned down at the corners at the use of the name 'peachy'. Why did these simple beings always come up with such odd nicknames for one another? Duck, plum, baby? Did this truly pass for endearment in these lands? What had happened to the Age of Poets? With her blades cleaned again she carefully slid them back to the two cases on her back fitted around her wings.

"You don't know?" the Huntress looked at him with a mix of disbelief and disgust; why would you choose not to know your own race lest you had been cast out from it and forbidden to return or deliberately left behind? And if the latter had he not some desire to know more of his ancestors? His gods? She shook her head; the people of this Age made no sense to her.

"How can yo--"

The ground around them suddenly exploded as beneath the carcass of the dead worm a giant beast exploded upwards, swallowing the dead animal as a bird might a meagre mealworm. Noor cursed, throwing herself atop the Jackal to roll them out of the way of the gnashing jaws that might have swallowed them too, but her actions did nothing to save them from the damage to the earth below. Cracked, the sands gave way in giant chunks. Rock, sands, cacti and more followed the retreating beast back into the hole it had created in a terrifying river of debris.

 

[Rahma]

Rahma's jaw set, teeth rigid against each other as he prepared to lash back at the strange, winged woman. How could she be more offended by Rahma's lack if knowledge than he was?! Fuck the errant grumblings of the sands, this took precedence!
"Now look, I--!"

But before the demi-jackal could even begin shouting her down, the earth's vengeance came to fruition. Some horrible beast ruptured the ground and, with a surprising amount of force, the winged woman tackled Rahma out of the way. The creature was gone as quickly as it arrived though, and with its exit the pair were being drawn into the tunnel below.

The change was on Rahma in an instant, shifting the anatomy of his extremities to furred, clawed appendages. There was nothing to grab hold of; the sands were loose and sinking quickly. Even with the enhanced strength and speed that came with the instinctual change of the shift, he'd not be saving himself from going under. The girl had wings, though...

"Fly, pretty bird!" Rahma shouted urgently from underneath the woman, shoving hard enough on her mid section with both hands and feet to get her airborne. In the split second he had to make the decision, he understood that she likely wouldn't be able to carry him. It was either both of them or just him, and Rahma wasn't the petty type.

With that second gone, Rahma could only look skyward, a defiant, fanged grin on his mien as he slipped into the chasm below...

 

[Noor]

Sand rained down upon them like the plagues of old. Beneath was nothing but darkness. Noor found herself wondering just how far down it went or if it went on forever. There were some old tales that the Gods had once buried their most gruesome and fearsome enemies at the very centre of the planet, and used the elements that formed Arethil around them to bind them in their prison. Were they down there?

It was not quite so easy a feat to get her wings open when sand, fauna and rocks tumbled down the ever growing split in the land. Every time she stretched her wings out they were weighed down or narrowly missed being hit by something sharp. The shove against her midriff was enough to get her aloft and in a seized moment of hope she beat her wings and aimed for the sky without so much as a thought for the creature that had helped her. But freedom was not her fate it seemed.

The gap widened and suddenly the hoodoo, the one she had been perched on not moments ago waiting for her prey, split up the middle and toppled downwards. Noor was swift enough to dodge a few of the smaller sections but as great giant boulders fell there was little she could do. When one hit her the whole world went dark.

Were they down there?

 

[Rahma]

Everything after Rahma went under was a rushing, sandy, blur. He felt the pull of gravity as he was sucked under, the distinct feeling of falling some way and the roar of the shifting earth all around him. It was nothing resembling a smooth ride, and he was breathless the whole way down. Several times he felt his chest, his limbs, his head crash against what could have only been the solidity of stone, cushioned only by the granular torrent around him.

Briefly the cascade gave way and he was falling free. He glimpsed what he thought was some sort of cavernous underworld, sunlight dappling in like godrays through clouds, barely giving light to the dark expanse. He had only a moment to inhale before again the sand swept him away. Blackness took him.

---

Rahma coughed awake, groaning as he pulled himself from the pile of sand he'd...landed in? Fallen into? Been carried down with? Where even was he? It was dark. Dark enough that his animalistic sight was barely able to see any detail, even in its monochromatic fashion. Either the afterlife was just as sandy and shitty as good old Amol-Kalit, or he'd lived and he was now far beneath the surface. The question was "how far?"

He pulled himself up, forcing his way out of the heavy sand that covered him and thankful that his head hadn't been buried before he'd passed out. The demi-jackal stumbled out and, in doing so, felt something starkly soft beneath his palms as he did. Distinctly not the cold rock that he could feel beneath his knees, the form had give and warmth. A body. He grasped for where he imagined a head might be and felt long locks of hair. The winged girl. Must have been.

Dish like ears flicked in the darkness. A soft inhale, then and exhale. She was still breathing. Rahma sighed, relieved for a moment. Then frustration hit him.

"Damn it all...thought I'd gotten you out..." He muttered to himself. Well, he couldn't well leave her here now, could he? Best to assess any potential wounds he'd received in the fall and wait for her to come to.

 

[Noor]

After the brilliance of the sun the new lands in which Rahma found himself no doubt seemed cloaked in darkness but, as his eyes adjusted, he would find that that was a lie. A better word to describe their new surroundings was gloomy. This was owed hugely to the fact small vestiges of light broke through haphazard gaps in the debris. What was odd, however, was this light did not stream in from where the hole they had fallen in should have been, but from deeper in the pit itself.

The feeling of unseen tiny claws scuttling across her skin was enough to jolt Noor from the blanket of unconsciousness. Pain bloomed like a red hot poker down her wing telling her in no uncertain terms that it was quite badly broken. She hissed in agony and in doing so drew sand and tiny bits of rock into her lungs making her push herself to her knees to cough it up. Her movement made another thousand pains known but none of them made her feel quite so sick as her wing. She hoped that meant nothing else was broken.

What happened...

Her head swam. She could remember the wyrm she had been hunting... and the Jackal-beast...

"Jackal!" she called, staggering to her feet. Her wing seemed to pulse with her heartbeat and her teeth gritted against the cry building in her throat. "Jackal, are you alive?!"

 

[Rahma]

The demi-human's eyes did indeed adjust over time, and the sight that was granted to him only furthered his confusion. Light swelled up from...below? Had the whole world been turned upside down?

Suddenly the winged woman coughed herself awake and dragged herself upright. Well, at least she was conscious.

"Hey, woah, easy there, peaches! If anything is broken you don't wanna move around too fast or ya might make it worse." Rahma chided the woman, hands up in a calming gesture. "So far as I can tell, I'm alive, yeah. Cracked a rib or three, I think. I'll be fine."

The half-jackal grabbed his side and winced. He'd felt better, but he'd definitely felt worse.
"Name's 'Rahma,' by the way. Works better than 'jackal,'" He stated with a grunt as he tried to figure out their surroundings. "Any clue where the fuck we are?"

 

[Noor]

Noor's whole vision swam and she put out a hand to steady herself against one of the rocks.

"You may call me Noor," if they got out of here she might tell him the rest but names were a sacred thing amongst the Sirions and rarely entrusted to outsiders. She imagined surviving a near death experience made someone as close to one of the Blood as possible and her father would most certainly want to thank whoever helped her out of this tomb. Once her vision settled she looked around at what Rahma was gesturing at.

Like him, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the various depths of shadows the underground lair cast. Her eyes were naturally drawn to the odd shards of faint light here and there and when she closed her eyes... yes, that was a slight breeze she could feel against her clammy skin.

"There are stories," she replied warily and began to pick her way through the rubble. "The type you tell a child to frighten it into behaving."

 

[Rahma]

"Noor..." He repeated, the name rolling off the end of his tongue. It didn't sound like anything he'd heard around the Empire before, but then again the wings and the way she spoke kind of gave away that she wasn't a local anyways. Not so far as Rahma could tell, at least.

Rahma's eyes tracked her in the dim light as she started to dig. The demi-jackal sighed and gripped his side as he moved to cooperate with her.
"Dunno much about caves. Haven't been into many. I can't see this being any worse than that big fuckin' hole out in the middle of the desert, though. 'Drakormir's Scar' or whatever," the jackal flashed her a fanged smirk as he shifted a rock aside. "I don't scare easy, so expect me to behave."

 

[Noor]

Every movement was agony but Noor let it roll over her like a wave breaking against the rocks. She accepted it was a part of her, then she let it go. There was no point in letting it consume her when there was nothing she could do. The years of training her mind in such a manner meant the pain quickly dulled to a nuisance in the back of her mind that allowed her to work. She'd beelined for the gaps in the rocks through which they could see faint glimmers of light and began to move some rocks to see if that revealed anything more.

"Drakomir is a babe in comparison to the beasts that live down here," she still seethed her people were too late to defeat that beast. The dragon would have been a noble prize to take home. "It is said before this world existed, there were great creatures. Forces of Light and Dark. The Gods that created life, and the Gods that hunted the living for sport and glory of death. They battled and in the end the forces of Light one, and the Gods locked their dark cousins in a prison then built the world around it so they could hear with their every breath the life that blossomed because of their victory."

 

[Rahma]

Rahma paused. The light trickling through was reassuring, but what Noor had just said was not.

"...Drakormir was fucking miles long. That thing ripped a hole in Amol-Kalit so big that they changed the fuckin' maps," the jackal replied incredulously. He could hardly imagine something existing that could make that...thing look like a 'babe' in comparison.

The demi-human shoved another small boulder aside with a grunt and more light flooded through. He hissed for a moment as the pain in his chest spiked momentarily before glancing over to the winged woman next to him.
"Pray to the fuckin' Six and Hundreds that your people are exaggerators."

 

[Noor]

The thinning of Noor's lips and the tightening of her jaw were enough to say what she didn't out loud. She focused instead on the task at hand.

Together they quietly cleared the debris enough to create a hole big enough a person could stick their head through. She wasn't sure if it took them minutes or whether it took them hours. In the darkness it was hard to tell and the light never seemed to waver or change. She wasn't even sure that light was coming from the sun but it was all they had to go on. When the gap was big enough Noor cautiously put her head through. A few seconds later she pulled back, a stunned look on her face, then she looked again as if to confirm what she had seen was real. The next time she sat up the stunned expression had turned into one of wonder and excitement.

"It's the City of Majdra."

The City of Gold.

 

[Rahma]

Rahma gave Noor a blank stare at the seeming revelation she'd just had post- sticking her head through the hole they'd dug out. He blinked, expression unmoved.

"...Ohh, right, the City of Majdraaa. Wow, that's crazy," he replied at last, unconvincingly feigning knowledge on the place.

The jackal was many things. An urchin, a punk, a dancer, a brawler, and an agent of the Imperial Regent's Hidden Hands. He was not, and never claimed to be, and educated fellow.

 

[Noor]

"Majdra," Noor corrected with a scowl. What did elder teach their young ones in todays world? She had made this argument to her father countless times; they should return in order to educate these people lest they grow too stupid. It was their duty as caretakers for the Gods who had created them and left behind their gifts. She sent a silent prayer up to those forebearers that the might make her father see sense when she made it home and explained the buffoon she had been stuck with.

"Look," she shuffled back so that he might stick his head through to see what it was she was so enamoured by.

Below really was a city made of gold. It appeared as though their small hole had been made in the vaulted cavern ceilings above the city which glittered below like the sun itself. Every road or building seemed carved of the precious metal or at least accented by it in some way. Jewelled flowers replaced real ones in an arrogant waste of gems that would have fed thousands.

"It is a marvel of the ancient world," Noor explained as if to a child. "Thought lost or destroyed over a millenia ago. It is said the people here could turn anything they touched into riches."

 

[Rahma]

That demi-jackal peered through and, lo and behold, there it was. He fought the urge to be enamored by the sight and pulled his head back.
"Well, that explains where all the light is pouring up from--kinda," Rahma supposed. How the golden city was emanating light down here in the underbelly of the earth wasn't immediately apparent. "But being rich ain't gonna matter much if we're stuck down here. You're the expert here; think there might be a way to the surface if we head further down?"

 

[Noor]

"I don't know," Noor began to move more rocks until there was just enough room for a person to squeeze through. "But there's definitely no way out upwards," the hole they had fallen through was non existent now. She sat on the edge of the hole and swung her legs through. It would be a long drop especially without her wings but she thought she might survive with only a sprained ankle at worse. Taking a deep breath she began to lower herself through the rest of the way until she was dangling up her fingertips. Once there she began to swing her lower body back and forth until she had enough power behind her to let go and send herself towards one of the buildings that had been close to their hole. She just caught the edge of the golden railings of a balcony and managed to pull herself up.

Panting a little and holding her wing with greater care she called up.

"I'll catch you, jump!"

 

[Rahma]

To say that this wasn't even the most bizarre turn of events Rahma had encountered since moving to Ragash was staggering, yet sadly true. Before he could even stop her, the winged woman had thrown herself deeper into their subterranean prison. Gods, she was bloody reckless!

"Ya know, there's this little concept called 'self-preservation' that you might wanna look up sometime!" Rahma hollered after her, grumbling to himself at the ridiculous feat he now had to emulate. By his own experience he might've been a little more nimble than her; he wasn't human, at least not fully, so far as he was aware, and the jackal bits often came in handy in a physical pinch.

Just as she had done, Rahma dangled down, swung himself by the rim of the hole. He let loose and felt the rush as he went into freefall briefly. It was funny how time seemed to stretch on in these moments. The railing was in sight, but he extended his hand to meet hers just in case as air continued to rush by...

 

[Noor]

Noor clasped his hand regardless of if he made the jump or not on his own more out of instinct than anything else.

"My sister has often lectured me on this 'self preservation' thing of which you speak, but I find it to lead to an awfully boring life," despite her solemn tone amusement danced in the depths of her eyes. Then she let him go and was moving towards the building's doors. They opened without the faintest creak or whine that would indicate they had been closed for a long time. In fact, the room beyond also looked as though it were still occupied. Fresh sheets had been put on the bed and not an ounce of dust or sand was to be seen.

Yet the city was quiet. Too quiet to belong to the living.

"If you are not an adventurer then why were you out in the desert so far from life?"

 

[Rahma]

Their hands met in a dull clap, and Rahma only now realized that he'd held his breath on the way down. Safely over the railing he exhaled heavily, letting the adrenaline course through him a moment before beginning to soak in the new locale, as well as that look of vague mischief the winged woman gave him.

"Yeah, well, it wouldn't kill ya to add a few drops of it to your morning coffee. Keeps ya young, fresh, ya know?" he poked back dryly.

He moved to follow Noor, noting the strange, almost pristine state of the place. The question she posed was one he didn't quite have an answer to.
"Ehhh...dunno. Just felt 'right,' I guess? Sometimes the cities really grate on me. Makes me itch, to the point that the only relief I get is gettin' out into the wild for a bit. How 'bout you pea--er, Noor? What drives a lady to go worm huntin' in the middle of gods-be-damned nowhere?"

 

[Noor]

Noor brazenly searched the room for anything interesting though when she left behind jewels, trinkets and other valuables it became a little unclear what exactly was interesting to her.

"Fun," she picked up a book and turned a few pages then tossed it onto the bed. "Though I suppose you mortals would call it my job too," if any of her kind could be said to have jobs. They were more like... what was the word for it, pasttimes? Hobbies? When a race did not have a need for anything for it was provided for them what else was there to do but enjoy their life with pursuits that interested them?

"I had not killed one of them yet, and I wanted to beat my sister to bringing home one of their heads," a sigh. "I suppose I'll have to find another to take home," her eyes searched the room once more then she shrugged and threw open the door to the hallway made of gold.