Fate - First Reply The Beast

[Oleg]

Oleg slid around the corner like a snake, masking the sound of his steps with an assassin's guile. "Where could you be..." he mumbled, referring to the source of otherworldly magic that had entangled his senses with its sweet aroma.

He saw it clearly, each and every detail that the inn's exterior had to offer. Attuning his hooded eyes to the low-lighting conditions, Oleg smiled. Laython believed Oleg enough to let him go unescorted and unsupervised. Oleg further confirmed so, judging by the lack of metallic clanks trailing behind him. It was only him, and whatever creature or object dared to reveal itself so brazenly amidst a densely populated human settlement. The audacity amused him.

Oleg stopped his pursuit dead in its tracks, facing the doors leading to the privy room. An unknown force tugged at his heartstrings, goading Oleg through means unknown.

He relented, reluctantly pressing the flat of his palm against the sturdy wooden frame. The oak felt rigid abreast of Oleg's skin, strangely alive, like a mass of writhing worms. Whatever was behind the doors leeched its supernatural presence into it, animating a pulse long dead.

The doors radiated warmth, vibrating at a frequency so subtle that none without supernatural abilities of their own would've sensed it.

Oleg lost control of himself, even if only temporarily. It proved more than enough for his fingers to drill into the wood. Offering little resistance, the oak fissured all over while the fragile lock that kept the privy room off-limits gave way, sending the doors swinging in full force.

It was a harsh impact, rattling the entire frame to the point where it nearly came out of its hinges. Oleg was unbothered, far too transfixed on the tiny, totally black humanoid skittering away from him.

It was the source. Had to be.

But it was tiny, no taller than five feet, a pitifully frightened creature, looking to hide just as an everyday cockroach would. Oleg couldn't tell if it was him or the light that it, no, she feared. He pegged the creature as a female from what little of its features he saw before it skid into the room's far corner, shrouded in a protective layer of darkness.

"Found. you.~♫" exclaimed Oleg in a sinisterly sing-song tone of voice.

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

The door came flying open so suddenly and with such force that Hahnah leaped back along the wall in fright, nearly tumbling over the garderobe but saving herself from spilling face first onto the floor. The swinging lantern above cast all manner of crazed, slashing shadows across the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Against the far wall Hahnah pressed her back, a palm, her other hand outstretched. A massive form in the doorway, blocking out the entire portal with his height and size.

It was...it was Oleg! He did sense her sorcery! But he did not know it was her. She had changed, transformed--

(But why? Why have I changed? What has happened? And why did the Dying God say what He said?)

--back into the form of her birth. She was no longer the elf he had met tonight, even if she was the same person. And, though he was not made aggressive through fear or repulsion, there was something else in his tone. He was singing instead of speaking those two words, which was strange, because this to Hahnah was not a time anybody would normally sing. Aside from the melody, his tone itself...was familiar. She knew it. The same sort of tone she herself adopted when, on occasion, she spoke to humans before Strathford had happened.

She needed to tell him who she was. Quickly.

"Please do not hurt me! Oleg, I am Hahnah. I am Hahnah! I know that I am no longer an elf and that I have become strange! I do not want to harm you!"

Oleg

 

[Oleg]

Oleg brought his index finger to his lips, pressing it against them while glancing from side to side for any signs of intrusion. "Shhhh!" he hissed, doing his best to silence Hahnah's distressed cries of terror. She feared him, but he couldn't afford to have others see her this way. They'd swiftly detain if not outright execute her. Oleg couldn't let it happen. He needed her, and she needed him.

"Be silent. We are not entirely alone, not yet." Oleg closed the door behind himself, stealing one last, suspicion-ridden glance as they shut tightly, gifting the two of them a sliver of privacy. "Laython's men are still here. I doubt they'll take kindly to your new, uh, appearance." Oleg would've admitted that he didn't know how to address her new form. She wasn't just different, and this wasn't a mere makeover. Hahnah's was an entirely new person from head to toe, recognizable only by the quality of her voice, which remained the same for the most part.

She was even shorter now, a feeble inch or two taller than an average dwarf. Her skin, eyes, body type, and facial features as a whole had changed drastically. Hahnah went from a slim, lithe, fair-skinned, and blonde-haired lady to a jet black, hourglass-shaped short stack with a pair of burning embers embedded in her eye sockets.

He reached out, seizing her forearm, running a gentle stroke up to Hahnah's shoulderblade. Her skin was uncanny, something between chainmail and boiled leather. It was also warm, so warm that he'd assume her disease-ridden and fevered had she retained her elven form.

"A part of me assumed it was all your doing, but an educated guess was all I could make." There was energy leaking through his skin, permeating the air with a secondary presence that wasn't Oleg but anchored itself to him. Ethereal limbs emerged from Oleg's back, each larger than his own. They moved towards her, biomechanical-looking frames suspended mid-air in all their maddeningly patterned, ocher-colored unholy glory.

"Harming you is no intent of mine, but I need answers." Each hand grasped a different section of her body, squeezing and stroking but never forcefully or with the intent to harm the short female. It was almost as if the limbs were exploring every crook and cranny of Hahnah's body, stopping only to admire the living armor's texture.

Oleg moved, and so did the ethereal constructs, elevating her tiny body above the ground until dangling her feet against non-existent support was all she could do.

"Maybe we aren't all too different."

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah hadn't realized that, despite her best efforts, her voice had climbed up from a desperate whisper to a louder plea. She flinched when Oleg shushed her, that realization bursting into her mind all at once, and she snapped clenched fists up to cover her mouth. No! She didn't want Laython to come out of worry and to see her as she was and to become hostile. If he were to attack her, she knew...she just knew that would kill him, even though she absolutely did not want to.

Laython's men are still here. I doubt they'll take kindly to your new, uh, appearance.

Hahnah nodded her head vigorously. She was supremely relieved that Oleg had understood at once, that he had not doubted her, and most of all that he had not become hostile. She knew there subtle differences between those who were just terrified of her, those who would attack only if she advanced first, and those who would come to aggressively attack her. It was in the eyes. It was always in the eyes. And fortunately, Oleg's eyes were none of these three.

"They would not be kind," she agreed. "I know it to be true." She didn't even need an awareness of the Obanese cultural attitude regarding women and magic, only her own experience.

And Hahnah watched, with only minor trepidation and uncertainty, as Oleg seized her forearm. For what purpose she did not know, but he was the only person in whom she could trust. Orange eyes tracked the upward motion of his hand, and the fibers of her Living Armor rippled only lightly at the contact--the Armor fed off of the information from Hahnah's subconscious, knew the trust she had placed in Oleg, and thus did not react in any defensive manner.

Then came those ethereal limbs, and that minor trepidation and uncertainty fell away, an intense and arresting fascination blossoming in its wake. She did hear Oleg say "harming you is no intent of mine," she might have even muttered a preoccupied response, she knew distantly that the ethereal limbs were examining her, but a curious awe had overcome her. Wide eyes feasted on the sight of the suddenly manifested arms. This magical power...from where did Oleg acquire it? She had wondered it previously and now she wondered it again: did Oleg feel a loving God within his heart too? From this God did he also manifest this power? And to what purpose had he been granted this power?

Maybe we aren't all too different.

She looked up at him, her body hanging placidly in the grasp of the arms which elevated her from the ground and examined her.

She spoke, a note of hopefulness in her tone, "...Are you strange too?"

Oleg

 

[Oleg]

The limbs implored Hahnah to stay still, touching and feeling her all over. Once the gropish act was over, they let go of her, gently lowering the short stack onto the balls of her feet. It was an act of subtle tenderness. Being suspended mid-air, roughly two meters off the ground, meant that any sudden de-materialization of ethereal limbs would've left Hahnah unceremoniously falling onto her bum.

Instead, she was cared for despite the intrusive nature of Oleg's examination. He looked at her standing form, smiled, and promptly flopped onto the floor, pressing his muscular back against the uninviting stone wall. The harsh material rubbed against his scantily protected skin in all the wrong ways, leeching off at Oleg's bodily warmth. Pans out that cow leather, for all its thickness, did little to provide proper insulation.

"Sorry for that, pipsqueak. It might be a part of me, but it also acts on its own at times." Oleg's lower lip curled back and under his upper row of teeth. He breathed ecstatically, dragging lazy circles across the flesh with the tip of his canine, threatening to cut it open any second.

"Can't say that I dislike your new look." He made a shapely gesture, winking and indicating the size of Hahnah's hips compared to the rest of her vertically-challenged frame. "Not that I have anything against elves, but in my opinion, the exotic and unusual is far more appealing."

"Anyhow," he butted in before Hahnah had the chance to ask further questions or protest his leery comments.

"Strange doesn't quite sum it up," sneered the taller figure, threatening to chortle halfway through his sentence. The air 'round Oleg grew heavy, chaotic. He raised one arm, index finger pointed at the moldy ceiling above. "Where do I even begin."

A strange substance, or energy, whichever it was, warped around the length of his forearm, coiling and exuding a great many emotions from it, each more chaotic than the previous one. Oleg moved his hand, and the ocher-colored tendrils followed, erratically clinging to his supernatural flesh from which they came.

"See this? This is magic. But look carefully." Oleg clenched his fist and, as if commanded by forces unseen, the magic congealed around it, writhing no longer. "It's MY magic, a byproduct of my body and not something harvested from external sources."

"It's a mutation, a recessive trait that allows me to generate magic with no outside help. I am, in a sense, a mutant."

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Hahnah's bare feet touched the hardwood floor again, and still she was captivated by Oleg's ethereal arms, eyes tracking their motions as her mouth stood slightly agape. And the way he spoke of them, it, those arms as a whole. The manner in which he described them, Hahnah could have said the very same of her Living Armor. Never before had she met someone in a circumstance similar to her own in this regard, living in a symbiotic relationship with another discrete being that was inextricably a part of them. For Hahnah, her Living Armor served to protect her, but for Oleg, his ethereal arms seemed to be for...examination? That was her guess.

He had teeth like a vampire, but vampires did not have ethereal arms--and vampires were cold. Therefore, Oleg was not a vampire. Though she still did not know what, if not a strange human. A strange human, perhaps, like she thought of herself as a strange elf. He did not dislike her "new" look, and, as she had hoped, he was not driven to aggressiveness and hostility by the sight of her. Maybe...maybe they were strange together.

Strange doesn't quite sum it up.

It dispelled this thought, but she was left more curious than anything. She canted her head with an avian preciseness, hair lightly dangling from the motion.

And she watched as the summoned energy snaked about Oleg's arm, resembling, yet again, one way in which she could manifest her own sorcery. Her eyes danced to the same tune as the energy's warping motion, and she watched with great interest. Even reverence. It was rare for her to see exhibitions of magical power, rarer still exhibitions of great magical power, and now as always it enraptured her as if she were seeing with her own eyes some transcendental majesty of the universe.

His words took a moment to register, but register they did. His own magic? So it was not the gift from a loving God? It was...a what? A mu...mu-tay-tion? She was unfamiliar with the word in Common. There was a word in Elvish that she remembered Elurdrith using to describe an antelope that was different from the others because of the way its horns were. Mutation seemed to be an analogous word in Common.

Different.

Different from the others.

Strange.

Hahnah knew she had little time--a brief glancing toward the closed privy room door outward evidence of that. Lieutenant Laython was waiting on her, and being as she was in the middle of this large city of Oban was still an enormous and terrifying problem. And yet...

"Your magic makes you different. You are a mutant because of it."

She placed a hand over her chest, indicating her "new" look. And she asked earnestly, "This is the way in which I was born. It makes me different like your magic makes you different. Are we both mutants?"

Oleg

 

[Oleg]

Oleg shook his head. "I don't think so," he added, craning his head to look at the musty, cob-web-ridden ceiling. "Being a mutant implies something unusual or extraordinary that doesn't fit the characteristics of," the man trailed off, paused, and laid his eyes upon her form once more, observing intensely, "...of whatever species you belong to."

"How do I put it?" Oleg's smile died down as he pressed his fingertip against the concrete floor. It dug in, and he began constructing crude, humanoid lines. He was no artist, so the finished product looked no more complex than a stick figure. "Humans don't naturally wield magic. Some of us have an aptitude for it, but we aren't born supernatural, unlike some other races."

"Now," Oleg hummed, index finger trailing, leaving behind four arrows, each of whom pointed at the aforementioned stickman. "Magically gifted humans are like receivers. They take in ambient magic, filtering and refining it into something moldable. That's how they cast spells, or so my father says."

His voice grew ever lethargic, lax, for Oleg wasn't sure whether the things he was saying were correct or not. Nonetheless, they proved at least semi-correct in practice. Therefore he had no reason to doubt the words of his father, a man who was, for all intents and purposes, a skilled mage with a lifetime worth of experience operating as a biomancer.

"Then there's me, both an emitter and generator of magic. The magic I use is my own, born of my flesh and willpower. It bends to my every whim, undyingly loyal and untakable."

He turned to look at her with an expression reeking of arrogance. "Perhaps it does make me a little less human than the rest of these flesh-bags."

Hahnah

 

[Hahnah]

Lieutenant Laython was a patient man, but here this virtue did not afford him much advantage. Time was a resource. His men were just outside the Stone's Throw, waiting for him out on the street with the detained criminals and civilians. This...matter with Hahnah was not supposed to take too long.

Yet, standing in the quiet and emptied lobby of the inn, Laython could feel the onset of the crunch of time.

He crossed his arms, bowed his head, and sighed. Worse, standing idle here like this, his guilt had gnawed and gnawed and gnawed away at his conscience. Perhaps he had been too willing to utilize the elf's help, too willing to take advantage of her heart and sense of justice. If Oleg hadn't convinced her with a few encouraging words, then perhaps she was in a state that was not pliable to being so convinced.

He ought to at least look Hahnah in the eye and apologize for involving her. Yes, he owed her at least that much.

* * * * *​

Hahnah listened with keen interest, head tilted forward and eyes receptive. It made sense, what Oleg was talking about. No, she could not be a mutant without first discerning what she truly was, other than a "strange elf." Though, if she was an elf, then she would indeed be both strange and a mutant, for she was not in form like Elurdrith, or Kylindrielle, or Idreth, or any of the elves who had been sieging Menura. Not at all.

And magic. She had not spent much time deeply considering the nature of magic. She knew hers was a gift from the Dying God (and that, for reasons she did not know, the gift could come and go). Humans did not wield magic naturally. Oleg was human. Wasn't he? She thought so...he looked like one...even if he had the teeth of a vampire. He implied as much when he said his natural magic made him a little less human. Oh? Flesh-bags...Hahnah had not heard those words combined in such a way before. It produced in her mind a rather unsightly image.

She had questions, plenty of them, but--

A soft knock on the privy room door.

"Hahnah," came Laython's voice, gentle in tone, from the other side. The door did not open.

Hahnah stiffened sharply, looking fearfully at the door. She was not afraid for her life (not against just the one man Laython), she was afraid for his life. If he saw her. Like this, in the form of her birth, the monster that the hunters always thought she was...

Her back pressed against the far wall in the small room, Hahnah looked up to Oleg with pleading in her eyes. Whispered, "You are understanding, but he will not be understanding. Please! I do not want to be forced to hurt him."

What to do? What to do??

Oleg