Open Chronicles Memory of Kings

[Leyik]

Mortal kind once pursued the magic of the Vale until the very gods fled from their greed. Artifacts of valley and gale, wend and wood, drawn from the hearts of spirits and the hides of favored beasts.

That was many hundreds of years ago. But even now, the Valen still has treasures to give.

To be taken.

---

In a greening grove, fresh with new leaf, a pond shore lapped at the peat moss. It was deep, and its bottom murky. The nearby village of Minina did not use it to wash their clothes or water their livestock, for fear of what had been lost in its waters.

Their fears proved founded, when, one day, a trio of hands rose from the depths. Pale and waterlogged, each ghostly hand grasped in their fingers a crown.

The first crown was woven of silver, a delicate circlet crested with emeralds. The second crown was cast of iron, braids of vines and leaves hewn roughly out of the metal. The third crown gleamed brilliant gold, high arches and spiking tines forming a sun-like halo.

Those in the area found themselves drawn to this place, by a voice or a feeling, by a memory or thoughts of the future.

---

Come to the pond’s edge. The crowns are fine of make. Fit for monarchs, shining with the fickle light of the forest. Wade into the water, and take one, and see how it fits so neatly upon your brow.

 

[Kor]

Boring.

A mission to the Vale should have been an exciting prosepct for one such as Kor, who revelled in the unexplored, the untamed, and that which could be hunted like prey. It was the only reason he'd accepted such an assignment as this so readily. with expectations of a challenging prey to track.

Instead, he'd been greeted with a scouting mission. Standing guard while an 'intellectual' studied a small area of the Valen Wilds for research purposes. A glorified bodyguard is what they thought him, then? Useful for nothing but babysitting the weak? No, he wouldn't entertain it.

His companions could deal with the droll and menial assignment. Kor had wandered off into the Vale at the earliest opportunity, Repent perched on his shoulder with his wing bandaged neatly. The poor Raven was still recovering from the ridiculous antics of Ysobel and Aelita, but he was finally healthy enough to rejoin his master in the field.

Flying was still out of the question, but the creature needed fresh air.

His journey into the unknown had led him deep through the green, into land that would have left any lesser lost and confused. Kor had eyes in the sky, however, and all of his Flock led him to one point of interest; The marsh like pond he now stood before, with olive-tinted water which seemed to glimmer beneath the sun.

Now, Kor saw what his children were so taken by. Not the water, but the three glittering crowns protruding from it, grasped in dead hands.

"Treasures of the dead." He muttered to himself, dropping to a knee. "Tempting any to attempt a claim upon them, like fish to a lure."

 

[Korinne]

“You mustn’t.” The blind woman of Minina said, pleaded. “You sound just like her, oh, how you sound just like her.” Korinne ripped her hand out of the blind woman’s grip, the three raven skulls tied to her waist clacking against each other. She ruffled her dress and cloak ominously.

“Your granddaughter is dead.” Korinne said, not caring if the clemency in her voice was obvious whether or not the woman could see her face. “But rest assured, she’s near you, always.” It was a curse, but an innocent one. Kori figured it would be best to let the blind woman have a piece of the granddaughter she cared so much about. Even if when Kori looked at the thing sitting on the woman’s shoulder she saw nothing but gruesome horror.

The skin had melted off of it’s face to show pieces of red, squishy muscle over the bleached bone. The eyes were black voids, matching the bare nostrils. It was missing it’s lower jaw. The fat on it’s body was bloated and gray, sores that oozed were around the rotund belly. Truly, only a thing that a blind woman could love.

“Don’t drink the water!” The blind woman cried out but Kori ignored her, already making her way to the pond that everyone in Minina seemed to fear. Likely a curse that had been enacted by one of her sisters long ago. It had probably festered in that pond, getting worse and worse. No matter, Kori was prepared to rid of it.

---

At least she had thought as much before she got closer and closer to the water’s edge only to see a young man was there. The most surprising part were the birds there that didn’t belong. Korinne was quiet, gimlet gaze assessing the water and seeing the three outstretched hands, each holding a different crown.

“Which crown do you like best?” She called out to him, making her presence known. “The gold, the iron, or the silver? I think I might just take the silver one for myself,” she said, kneeling down adjacent to Kor. She leaned over the edge, unable to see her reflection in the murky waters.

If this was a curse cast by one of her early sisters, it was a strange one, indeed. Kori couldn’t help but to feel a sense of unease. She had never been overconfident, but she had never lacked confidence. Right now, there was a uncertainty that wound itself around her heart. Danger. She could feel it on the sheen of sweat on her brow, taste it on her tongue and lips.

“There must be only one way forward,” and with that, Kori leaned further, going to grasp the silver crown. The more she reached over, the more she was certain that even a single breeze would be able to unsteady Her balance so she’d fall in.

 

[Leyik]

Leyik did not mind flocking with the lesser of her kin. She merrily joined the flutter of darkling wings and low-rumble calls as the traveler's birds gathered in the trees. They told their stories of other lands, and Leyik listened, and joined in with her own news. For awhile she was content with this exchange, but then a man walked to the center of the flock and caught her attention.

Family, the Flock said to her as they circled over the man's head. Treat him well.

Of course Leyik would help the raven's kin! She was a good host, and a benevolent prince. Nodding a bird's nod, she hopped down to a lower bough, swishing dangerously close to the murky water. Her body twisted nearly up-side down as she craned her raven's head to look sideways at the man in dark clothing.

And how exciting, here was another come to the edge of the pond! Leyik loved seeing new people, and she had a fondness for the strange ones, who often had such interesting dreams.

"There are no kings in the Valen," Leyik said to either one of them, clacking in raven-speak, which to most human beings sounded just like cawing. "But once there were one, two three! A magic king, a powerful king, and a wise king... can you guess which is which?"

---

The witch Korinne would meet no resistance as she reached out for the silver crown, at least not from the pond or from Leyik. The hand even seemed to push it towards her, their grip light and easy to break.

Emerald facets glinted pale against the reflections of the muddy water, as sleek as the day they were first set into the silver crown. An oppressive feeling pulsed out from the crown, not like a curse but rather something that resisted curses, an object from which magic sloughed off of like snow on a roof.

The name of the crown, Leyik knew it. "Krkrkrkr!" she called out as the witch woman's fingers stretched ever closer. "The crown of Melmidoc, Incantation Fetter!"

Wait... the woman wasn't family. Did Leyik still need to be kind to her?

Kor Korinne

 

[Kor]

“Which crown do you like best?”

Kor's idle observations of the three crowns were interrupted by the voice of a woman. The young man's head, and that of the Raven on his shoulder, turned to watch her as she carelessly approached him, kneeling down directly beside him as if she were some acquaintance he should be so tolerant of. His lip twitched holding back a snarl of distaste.

It was less that she was here that bothered Kor, and more that he hadn't noticed her earlier. He prided himself on his awareness, the eyes of many in the sky often allowing him to know what was happening for quite some distance away, despite his blindness. He had allowed the strange allure of these crowns to occupy his mind too fully to note her presence.

"I'm not so base or material that these pointless baubles interest me." Kor replies, looking back down at the displayed treasures sticking out of the mire temptingly. It was half true; There was some quality about the crowns that drew him in, the same that had allowed the stranger to get so close to him. Even as he spoke, his body leaned forwards slightly. "But if I were to pick one, it would be that of Gold. A metal considered master over all others, as I aim to one day be."

Before he could move forward, he heard the call of the Raven. But not his own loyal companion. No, this was another who spoke to him, another ebony bird who swept down to greet him. This one was different; This one did not adhere to his orders. Instead, it stared into his foggy, blind eyes, clicking its beak in words he understood through his bond with Repent and the flock.

Kor listened as she spoke of the Kings, a tale he'd little reason to believe if it were told to him by human lips. That one of his kin, one that bore the black of the Raven spoke it to him was the only reason he sought to respond.

"It matters not. All three have died, and none are remembered by name. I aspire to be greater."

Another pause, as he considered whether to entertain her question anyways.

"Silver the Magic, Bronze the Wise, and Gold the Powerful."

Kor already had magic, and wisdom had taken him beyond the petty squabbles and incessant juvenility of the Academy, at least in his own opinion. So it was the Gold that he reached out and claimed for himself, spurred only by the stranger beside him. He would not be left out of this endeavor.

 

[Korinne]

The raven that came down to hold onto the branch was interesting. As it cawed and looked about the two people that had knelt by the pond, Korinne realized that it was speaking to them. She was a witch, a human first, and therefore, couldn’t understand the bird on her own.

A gray hand went down to the leftmost raven skull tied around her waist. A sigil glowed from it’s bare forehead and a raven manifested on Kori’s shoulder. It had red eyes and despite able to be seen, if one looked away they would soon forget that the bird was even there on her shoulder at all.

“Melmidoc.” Kori repeated to herself. The raven had translated everything, minus the first sentence that the talkative raven had said as it had missed that. Her eyes centered on the crown that the man beside her reached for, the silver one only a centimeter away from her fingertips.

She could feel the arcane crown of red thorns close in around her mind, a migraine beginning to needle its way at the base of her skull. Well, if grabbing this crown pissed off her sisters then how could Kori refuse? Without a word, the forlorn and forsaken witch finally wrapped her boney fingers around the silver circlet.

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

The ravens laughed their throaty laughs. A pine needle fell into the pond, sending ripples across the surface of the water. And the two travelers, ambitious and forlorn, grabbed the two crowns with little fuss. The hands that held the crowns retreated back into the water. Only the bearer of the Iron Crown remained.

The silver circlet rattled and deformed. It stretched thin and twisted in the Raven Witch's hands, and whether she held her grip on it or not, it would wrap round her wrist. Reforged in a moment, it took the same shape and glimmer as it had been before, except now just large enough to fit upon Korinne's frame. The circlet clung snugly to her wrist as a bracelet, and if Korinne tugged at it, the witch would find that it could not be taken off.

"Now you have... two crowns?" Leyik asked the witch, titling her head perpendicular to the earth, genuinely surprised.

The gold crown also changed its shape. It became miniature, and slipped itself onto Kor's ring finger. Tightened there, unwilling to come off. Leyik tilted her head this way and that. Her cold black eyes were full of joy. She had promised the flock to be kind, but she could not help herself. Human beings were so much fun, when they thought themselves clever.

"Gold is wise, wise wise! Gold stops wars, and opens doors!" Leyik chanted excitedly. Spreading her wings, she lifted off her branch and came to land on Kor's other shoulder. She wanted to whisper, but ravens didn't have it in their gullets, and so she croaked quite loudly in his ear: "The crown of Einar, Friend of Wealth."

As quickly as she'd come, she hopped off the man's shoulder. Her black form dipped low as she flew mere inches over the pond. Then she ascended, turning high overhead in tight circles.

"Ask me what they do! Ask me!" she cawed.

Kor Korinne

 

[Kor]

If Kor was bothered by Leyik's incessant jabbering and excitement over his decision or the incorrect answer he'd apparently provided, then he showed no evidence of it. As she moved to his shoulder, he merely stared up darkly at the golden ring embracing his finger, moving his hand so that his winged companion could examine the new bauble from all angles.

He found that he disagreed with the stranger's assessment of Gold being wisdom. One did not need to be wise to use riches to get what one wanted. Any barbarian could figure out a barter system of this for that. However, he thought it unwise to argue the point with the strange raven that now hopped from his shoulder and soared high, calling for attention overhead.

Kor took a moment to look beside him at the woman who'd chosen the silver crown, now wearing it snugly around her wrist. He'd no desire to throw stones over her selection when he too had been ensnared. "One certainly hopes we've not been made fools of." He mutters to her, before bringing his eyes skyward to the raven circling overhead.

"Sate my curiosity then. What curse or boon have we been given?" Kor called up to Leylix, a tone of indifference in his voice. There was too much left for him to accomplish to let whatever power lay in this strange shifting crown stop him. Of course, if they bolstered him, it would be a different matter entirely. "And for what price?"

 

[Korinne]

Kori tugged and tugged at the silver circlet around her wrist. Much to her chagrin she couldn’t take it off. She frowned deeply and dark brows furrowed heavily over her deep set eyes. Glaring at the circlet did little for her. She felt thorns digging into her mind, punishing her. Maybe this time she should have tried to listen to the warning the crown gave. Too late now.

She was rather happy though that whoever it was beside her, who thought he knew so much and seemed to scoff at her choices, was wrong. Served him right. Men, always thinking they knew the best. Perhaps it was from her time in only being with her coven but Korinne believed that had nothing to do with it. Behind every great man was a greater woman, they just preferred to be humble instead of stealing the spotlight all the time.

“Yes, the price.” She hoped it wasn’t anything as serious as her life. If it was, then Kori had every intention of chopping her hand off and throwing it back into the pond.

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

It was so tedious sometimes, helping humans. They really had to have someone that looked like them, before they fully understood. Leyik would humor them.

She twisted in the air above the two's heads, a ball of feathers and darkness that was difficult to comprehend. Wings became fingerbones and claws became toes. Flightless now, Leyik landed softly upon the water, standing in the center of the pond as if it were a walkable surface. A cloak of black feathers was draped across her shoulders. She looked mostly human, except for the odd pallor of her skin, and the black blotches of scales that lined her features.

“I changed my mind,” she said frankly, nodding to Kor as he spoke his curiosity. “Let’s ask them, instead!” Happily, Leyik hopped over to where the last crown lay untouched, and more importantly, where the hands had retreated back into the water.

With her recently formed limbs, Leyik reached down and fished around in the water. She clasped the hand that had once held the silver crown, and pulled it back up from the muck. She heaved with a huff and strain of her midsection, and the rest of the body followed. It stood waist-deep in the shallow water. Coated in pond scum, red as overscrubbed skin, but still as fresh and whole as the day it died.

“Tell them, tell them why you still dream!” she said to the corpse.

A man, human, with short black hair and a greying beard that was trimmed centuries out of style. The bearer of the silver crown lolled his head to the side. His mouth opened, but his tongue did not move. Words spilled from that wet, black maw unhindered, as wine from a goblet.

“I was Melmidoc’s chamberlain,” it spoke in a thin, watery voice. “His last days were spent in his bed, afflicted by a poison. Someone had killed him, someone close to him. For he understood the magicks of the Vale, could control its artifacts, and there were many that desired his power. As he died, the King of Incantations used his last breaths to lay a curse upon those who wronged him…

‘Whomsoever envies my crown,
Take it!
Fill your cup with my magic,
‘Til you drown.’

Such were his last words.”

---

The raven witch might be able to sense something, a powerful magical energy flowing round the circlet on her wrist. She could dip into that river, and draw it out. But there was also a malice contained deeper within, festering like poison - a hunger to see its bearer suffer in return for the gift.

---

Waves lapped upon the pondshore as Leyik reached out to the other hand, and heaved it up. An elf rose from the waters, long, reddish hair dripping down her body and obscuring most of her features. Only one cold, yellow eye stared out at the raven lord who had taken up the golden crown. Her wrath needed no prompting.

“I am the one who killed Einar,” said the elf, in the deep rumble of gravel at the bottom of a stream. “He tore the life out of my hills, cast its flesh in flame. My trees cut down to feed the fires. My fish in the river choked on coal. My people put in chains to die in his mines. All for a handful of little trinkets. The king of wisdom? Bah! The king of fools! Human beings think that just because something lasts beyond their lifespan, then it is forever.”

“But I. Lasted! Longer!” The elf raised one long finger, and pointed at Kor. Rage burned in her eye. “Live as long as you like. When you die… whatever you forged with your two hands, be it in blood or gold, will die too. Your name will be forgotten, just as Einar’s was, and the hills will grow over your grave once more.”

---

The ring upon the raven knight’s hand is patient. The cold gleam glinting between its set ruby gems promises a long life, one devoid of disease or old age. Only the blade will be able to kill its bearer. But the life lived will be empty, hollow as the center of the gold ring.

---

“Just dreams,” Leyik said softly, looking down at the ripples in the water at her feet. Her mirth had drained suddenly from her. There was an old weariness in her expression, and tears may have fallen from her eyes, were she not already damp with transformation. “One clings to the memory of kings out of love, the other from wrath.”

She stood between the two bodies, palms outstretched and facing up towards the rustling leaves above. “These dreams speak true. The Valen claimed them long ago, and they have no more mortal lies left in their hearts.”

 

[Kor]

Kor did not balk at the otherworldly transformation between his eyes, a raven shifting into a pale, feather-laden woman. There were many strange types in this world, and an entire host of them comprised the Academy he attended. Nevertheless, the display of shifting ability did leave an impression on him. To become one from another so effortlessly, he nearly admired the strange woman. Nearly.

No, what came next was far more interesting. Rather than explain the meaning of her words to them, she opted to let them hear it all from the ones who came before, reaching into the murky depths and pulling the faces of death itself to the surface to speak once more, regaling both Kor and the stranger who'd joined him with tales of their lives, and their deaths.

Was the display not so grandiose, perhaps the Dreadlord Initiate may not have been so inclined to believe them. Their appearance left little to doubt, however.

And what tales they were, these stories of the baubles they'd taken from the water. The Slayer of Einar spoke his words as though they were a warning, damnation on him to live a hollow life and to be forgotten at its end. Kor, or his Raven rather, did not gaze at the ruby-set ring with any fear or regret though. On the contrary, the words the elf weaved brought a small smirk to his features.

A ring that could prolong him. A ring that could help him achieve his goals, and at the cost of what? His legacy? Pah. He needed no legacy. What use was that which was left behind by him when he was dead? Kor, certainly, would no longer have need of it once he was in the ground. Let it be dust then.

Kor allowed Leyik to speak her piece, so obviously moved by the memories spoken into the air. She was an interesting, alluring creature. Nevertheless, his blind eyes peered down upon the bodies with a somewhat dismissive air.

"Are all beings of death so hopelessly sentimental?" The Initiate grumbled, closing his ringed hand into a fist and bringing it back down to his side. "I live a hollow life already, one without true fulfillment. What they speak does not strike fear in me. I would rather seize what I desire and hold it for as long as I can then be remembered. Let them forget me. I will forget them as well."

Leyik Korinne

 

[Korinne]

Korinne’s eyes narrowed at the raven’s transformation. What was it exactly? Some sort of shifter? Clearly there was magic involved… a familiar belonging to a witch? Korinne had chosen the shadowy wings of ravens instead of the favored moths and owls when it came to their winged friends. Korinne had always preferred the company of birds compared to her silver-tongued sisters and their passive aggressive caress.

She did not like the company of this raven— now woman— before her. She couldn’t say she even liked the company of the man beside her, but then again, she had never cared much for men. Perhaps that was why she didn’t enjoy this cursed silver around her wrist. The thorns seemed to press tighter into her head as the first body appeared. It had belonged to a man that clearly failed.

Yet there was still some magic that seemed to be tied to it, wanting to pull Kori into too-still pond. Only the raven woman seemed to have the surface of the pond emit slow, lazy ripples. The deep frown wouldn’t leave the witch any time soon. Ignoring the melodramatic words of the man beside her, Korinne gestured with a hand to catch Leyik’s attention.

“Do you have a name?” It was a simple question and perhaps hardly important. Yet before Korinne did anything else, she had to make sure this strange creature was, at the very least, able to be impartial to this strange occurrence. Something told Korinne that she shouldn’t evoke the wrath of the woman on the water or the strange tendrils of magic underneath the murky water.

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

An answer was given. Ripples reached the pond shore.

The image of the redheaded elf - for it was only an image, dreams of the dead given weight in the murky waters of the shallow pool - whispered away as steam off a bath. Leyik's left hand dropped back at her side.

The raven girl made a funny krk-krk-krk sound as she tilted her head at Kor's comment. Perhaps a laugh. "Okay!" she said, brightening once again with an abruptness that might be jarring. "I guess I will see you again when you die, raven-kin. Tah-tah!"

Leyik's right hand was still held out with open palm, to the other undecided. The witch's question drew her interest. The witch, Leyik paid more attention to, for Korinne was not the Flock's kin, and not the Valen's charge, and that made her a passing fancy.

"What. Do. They. Call. Me!" She chirped in the click-clack way of beaky birds. "Friend-corbran," she echoed the words of another, and then called up more voices in her throat. All the things that she'd been named, in recent memory. "Darkling thing, little one, prince of ravens, kindred storm. And more than any else..." She tilted her head one way, then the other, mostly for dramatic effect. "Ley-ik!"

Kor Korinne

 

[Kor]

Kor was dismissed outright by the strange shifting woman. It was as if she found his acceptance of what he'd been presented with boring, or mundane. If she truly considered herself 'raven-kin', then he supposed that made sense. She would know the choice he'd make. Just like a raven spotting a glimmering treasure out of the corner of its eye, he'd swooped it up without a second's hesitation.

There was nothing stopping him from leaving now, from returning to his group and leaving this bizarre, if perhaps fruitful encounter behind him. The Initiate turned to do just that, but found an unseen force tugging on his nape, like a hand gripping him by the collar. Was it his own morbid curiosity? That of the flock in his mind, eager to see what happened next?

Kor did not know, and he did not question. Instead, he simply turned and watched the pair of women, his arms drawing up over his chest. as the witch debated her options with more forethought than he had. She drew the strange being's name into the open and it seemed to echo off of the rotting trees as it left her throat.

Leyik

"Does such a name glean something for you, witch?" He found himself asking. "Despite the multitude of names she claims to have, I feel as though we would have known of this place, had it been documented by any who lived to tell of it. Loose lips are the folly of even the strongest..."

Korinne Leyik

 

[Korinne]

“Names are always important.” Kori said to Kor with a gimlet glower. Her stormy eyes went back to Leyik. She didn’t smile although it might have made her face less severe if she had. She couldn’t deny the pull she felt from this pull and already she had to still the arm that the cursed circlet was tied around. She wouldn’t dip her fingers into that pond just yet.

“Leyik.” Her lips remained downturned although there was a bit of humor in her eyes that contradicted the frown. She held out her gray hand to the kindred storm. “Let me officially introduce myself. I am the daughter of dark witch Agatha of Lunar Moths. I am the shunned dark witch of le Coven du Jardin de Crépuscule,” Korinne dipped her head, perhaps in shame, but far more likely to hide the bitterness. “Korinne. The raven witch.”

Still kneeling, the great flock of ravens flapped their wings and croaked their raspy sound. She had no idea if Leyik would find it rude, but it seemed the enigma appreciated ravens. Why the insufferable man beside her was called raven-kin, Kori had no idea. As far as she could tell, he didn’t sport a pair of wings or a beak.

“But if you’re in need of a friend, you can call me Kori.”

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

The man who was raven-kin did not speak directly to Leyik, and so she did not answer him with the knowledge that she had. Of places and history. She kept her eyes on the witchy woman, as her own introduction was offered.

"Koreen Lecovindugardeen de Creepy Cool," Leyik repeated as best she could. She blinked big black eyes, with an absolute lack of understanding of the words and their origins, until the raven witch spoke again. "Kori it is! I am a friend to witches, generally."

That was true. Leyik thought that witches were nosy with all their magics and their books, and as a raven with a very big beak, she did value this as a trait in common.

"You asked my name, but you wanted my shape, I can tell. I will say that too." Leyik's hand was still raised palm upwards. The memory she stirred, that of the king's steward with the peppery beard, was wilting back into the water, turning greyer as the body slipped further down into the muck. Its time in the waking world seemed to be dependent on Leyik's concentration, and she was thoroughly distracted.

"I am a beast!" She squawked, and the flock of ravens added their squall afterwards. Her gazed turned upwards to the nebulous form of their dark wings mixing into the needled trees. "There are many like me in the Valen Wilds. We learn to speak -- sometimes because we live for a long time, and sometimes because a fellow teaches us. And then, a little later, we learn to become." She clicked cheerily in the back of her throat, pleased with herself. "That was a good description, wasn't it? I could not have given it to you until just now. I am still becoming, you see."

Kor Korinne

 

[Kor]

Sometimes even Kor had to admit when his arrogance had gone too far. Being so readily ignored by the strange creature known as Leyik, her blackened form still suspended somewhere between woman and beast. Perhaps it was that she had far more knowledge to offer, were he willing to properly listen. Indeed, as the two of them flexed their influence over the birds that now saturated the small mired grove, he felt his own connection with them slip, even his most loyal upon his shoulder struggling to resist the urge to join in.

"Many like you?" He interjected. "Do all of you wield this powerful influence?" Where his tone had been somewhat disbelieving and incredulous up until this point, Kor now sounded rather intrigued, if not somewhat troubled by Leyik's implications.

Kor set his jaw, his Raven looking between the anomalous girl and the self-proclaimed Raven Witch. No, he must swallow his pride and play along. The truths these two may hold could throw his plans for the future into disarray if he were too thick-headed and cocksure to do his due diligence and investigate further. Offering a slight bow of his head, Kor tries once more to speak, this time in a more subdued voice.

"Forgive me. I am Kor, a Dreadlord of Vel Anir. My blood is Pirian, though I use not their wretched name." Several of the swarming birds turned their heads, and after a brief flash of white behind their eyes, flocked to him as well. "I command my flock through a combination of magic and might of mind, but my reach extends further than the Raven; when I call, so too come the crows, the hawks, and eagles, even the lowly robin."

Repent departed from his shoulder, hopping over to Leyik with a sharp caw, landing before her with eyes glowing a misty white.

"Born without sight, I use the eyes of my friends to see that which is around me."

Korinne Leyik

 

[Korinne]

“No one cares, Kor, shut up.” Korinne had few friends. Correction, she had zero friends. Even when she hadn’t been shunned from her coven, not even her mother had liked her. She missed the long days in the study to do nothing but read and the short nights of practicing her magic.

She needed a friend more than the mysterious beast Leyik did. She could have tried being friends with Kor but she didn’t like how similar his name was to hers. Or that he called robins lowly and Leyik had called him raven-kin and seemed to like him better than her. Her face twisted into something unpleasant, assigning every negative trait she could think of to Kor. He was insolent, stupid, haughty, arrogant, a man….

“What are you becoming?” Human? Surely not. Korinne had always found humans to be more repulsive than a molting bird. A god? Now that seemed far more likely. Once more, the witch looked into the pond. Maybe she should dip inside, just to see what power there was.

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

"Command?" And powerful. And influence. This guy was full of odd words. A tilt of the head from the girl-raven, a blink of her black eyes. She heeded him, even though the witch Kori insisted otherwise. It was lucky for Kor that she liked to listen to people, even when she did not like what they said.

Leyik's gaze turned downwards as she tracked the movement of the raven, the smart one called Repent, at her feet. She squatted low to meet the bird, resting her clawed hands on her knees, her feather cloak trailing out across the water's surface behind her.

"Its a lousy way to talk about family. Does it bother you?" She asked the raven.

Leyik nodded. "Mhm, mhmm," she hummed as if she could hear all that Repent said, whether it actually spoke to her or not. "Egads! Even though he has so many unkindnesses in him?" A pause to let the bird respond, another hum and nod from Leyik. "Yes yes, we are all an unkindness together, I know."

She seemed satisfied, or at least resigned, with whatever answer the pale-eyed raven had given her. "Very well. Kin it is."

What are you becoming?

Leyik stood up straight at the question from the witch. Briefly, she lifted up onto her toes, then splashed back down against her heels. The water rippled around her with the shift in her balance. "I don't understand the question!" She admitted frankly, and loudly.

She pointed at Kor, then at Kori. "You are a Dreadlord, you are a witch." She pointed next at her own self. "I am becoming! Becoming is a conjunction, becoming is Leyik-and, Leyik-yet, Leyik-if...!" She crooked her head to one side, curious. "If I was already anything else, I would be-something and I would say it instead of be-coming."

Korinne Kor

 

[Kor]

"Leyik, The Becoming." Kor muttered, seemingly choosing to ignore the Witch's indiscretion. It was rare that Kor allowed himself to admit a fascination with another, but watching Repent so casually converse with the strange woman as though she were one of his own captivated him. Such a bond was something he'd been attempting to achieve ever since he'd gained his powers, and only now did he see how far away he was from attaining it.

"At the risk of sounding repetitious, allow me to ask, Leyik..." The confrontational edge to his voice had left, and he knelt before his Raven with a phantom's smile upon his lips, reaching out to gently stroke a finger across the bird's head, flattening his ebony feathers to his skull. "Were you always this? A Becoming? Or were you like us at one time? Human? Frail?" Kor wouldn't fault her for abstaining from an answer. It was a query even he wouldn't he comfortable answering in its entirety.

"I speak of commanding Repent, and his flock, but it is not so one-sided as it may seem..." He muttered, wondering if the Raven understood his words, and not just the magic he used to commune with him. "They do as I say, and in return, I ensure they are well-fed, properly groomed, and well-kept, and I offer them a safe haven to nest and hatch their young. They obey me because it is in their best interest. Is that not the way of the world, Leyik?"

His head turned to Korinne, his eyes still milky and unseeing.

"If someone could offer you everything you ever wanted in life, in exchange for your support and camaraderie, would you not take it?"

Korinne
Leyik

 

[Korinne]

Leyik had a way with words, Kori would admit that much. She wasn’t sure if she was either dumb for not have recognizing those words, the intrisnic meaning behind them when placed before a word as great as “be,” or if she was too unaccustomed to poetry and practically merging as one.

“Hm.” Korinne said. “No.” She didn’t have to think about it. “Nothing will come close to freedom.” The thorns pressed into her skin and if they were real, she would have bled. Instead she only felt the pain. She looked down at the silver circlet around her wrist. Should she stay here and continue to listen to the insufferable man beside her? Finally, she put her hand inside the still water, ready for her consequence.

Leyik Kor

 

[Leyik]

That same weary look as before cross over Leyik's features. "Ah, already you sound like the king whose crown you wear," she said, a far-seeing smile on her lips. "Your corbran-friends will forget you, too." Abruptly, she grew careless again, and her voice lilted up into the cheery cantor that seemed to be her default. "So sad~" she teased.

Arms - some pale, some dark, ochre, scaled - rose up from the water around Leyik's feet. They grabbed at her ankles, brushed fingers across the downy hairs on her calves, and tugged at the edges of her black feathered cloak. They demanded attention, but not from the witch Korinne, who fished around in the water for them.

With a shake and a wave of her hand, Leyik shooed the arms away as one might a clingy child. She did not even spare them a downward glance.

"Yes, yes, yes, it is the way of the world, just as the raven-kin says! And I am tired of giving for free," she announced loudly to the two travelers. She turned away from Kori and Kor, facing the opposite side of the pond shore. The hands that clung to her skirts trailed after her as they tried to maintain their grasp. Leyik crossed her arms, and she huffed up at the sky haughtily. "Humph! I will not answer anymore questions!"

A backwards glance, just a coy peak at the two, and a mischievous flash of teeth. "Unless you have a gift for me in turn...?"

Kor Korinne