|
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Oct 17, 2015 0:26:47 GMT -6
That... had taken a lot more out of her than she had hoped. But about as much as she'd expected. Nayru was caught midway between being disappointed with and very pleased with herself; it was frustrating to know that no matter how much power she had, she still couldn't USE it effectively without the skill and control to manipulate and conduct it... but at least she had accurately gauged that that attack was too much for her. So at least she knew where she stood, which was sucking, which sucked. On the bright side, she had pushed herself further than ever before and still managed to come back in one piece, so it wasn't a total wash, and she had managed to protect Veigue and the people of Bern.
She was so very tired, though, to the bone. Not simply muscle exhaustion, but spiritual as well, her body trying to accommodate the new-found essence coursing through her. More training to do, more lessons to learn. But for now - it was over. The world seemed to twist and bend around Nayru's form for a second, a curtain of shadow enveloping her gigantic frame for a moment, and then it - and she - were gone, dissipating into wisps of ebon smoke that evaporated into nothingness around where the once-more human Nayru stood on the blasted earth unmoving.
They had won.
...So why did it feel so empty?
The sense of ennui was hard to shake off, and she wasn't sure why. Beat the bad guys, save the people, rescue the handsome prince, get a power up - on the front of it, it sure sounded like a good bed time story about a strong and independent female warrior. In practice, though, all she could see were the flaws; her own weakness causing the battle to be much closer than it should have, her self-inflicted damage locking her out of her breath weapon for the entirety of the transformed battle, Veigue had still gotten lightly injured, and above all, the look in the chimera's eyes just before she killed it still haunted her.
There had been intelligence there - almost a sense of kinship - and somehow she knew that she reciprocated it. How or why, she had no idea, but she couldn't shake the feeling that if things had gone differently, the creature might not have been what it was. The most frustrating part of it all was that in some ways the beast was even a dark mirror of herself, not a 1:1 comparison, but in some abstract fashion she could see a familiar handiwork, a design with a few eerie similarities to her own, and she wasn't sure what that implied.
...Heh. Seemed that a bit of the chimera's corpse actually had remained in one piece, Nayru noted with a wry smile as the smoke and dust and fire cleared to a degree. Didn't look like much of it, but at least they could take a trophy back to prove they'd finished the job. How convenient. But an issue for another time. She turned to Veigue, a little stiffly, and began moving over towards him to see how he was doing. He didn't look to be in any real danger, but going by how he was cradling his arm, neither was he entirely unscathed. "Well, that was fun. How're you holding up?"
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2015 12:07:31 GMT -6
Well, it was good to see that nothing else was going to poke out of nowhere to attack them. He'd probably bang his head repeatedly on a nearby tree if another chimera came flying in looking to avenge it's fallen comrade...
Yeah, moving on.
Still facing in a direction where he could examine the damage of the surrounding area, he turned his head slightly sideways as Nayru approached. "I'll be all right... it's nothing serious." Granted, even though the sleeve of his coat was a tad thick, Veigue could still feel his own blood slowly sliding down the covered arm, believing that the attack must have struck him harder than he thought. He was surprised the sleeve didn't tear or something, though magic was weird like that when it's inflicted upon a target. It may have been the frost that instantly coated his arm that may have distracted him from it during the heat of the moment. He was just grateful he still had his arm and that it wasn't broken.
That slight pain in the arm wasn't the real injury, however. Heck, it barely even bothered him until he started thinking about it more. As he clenched his arm slightly, but unnoticeably tighter, the disgust he experienced from his own weakness and failings was becoming a little more irritating than usual to bear. Of course, he maintained somewhat of a neutral expression to mask the frustration, but that didn't stop him from having thoughts of venting the anger through another unsuspecting tree. Thankfully, he resisted that well this time. He already had a network of scars as is, even though 90% of them were concealed. But he was just bloody tired of being held back from being any major use despite his advancements in his personal swordsmanship. Seemed like the stronger he became, the more complicated things were - or rather, more dissatisfaction was created. ...He was at least careful to not allow that ambition for greater strength turn into one of darker nature, but the inferiority will never stop bugging him.
Deciding to let these thoughts sit until he had the time to return to them properly, Veigue just opted for turning the opposite direction to give himself a moment to properly repress them, while at the same time swapping focus on the topic. "...But my well-being isn't of importance. Are you all right after that ordeal?"
|
|
|
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Oct 17, 2015 21:27:04 GMT -6
"Hm." Nayru gave her companion a somewhat doubtful once-over with her gaze, not entirely convinced he was being honest about how beat up he was, but didn't push it. Not because she didn't care, but because he seemed to be frustrated about something - as always he was trying to hide his feelings, but she hadn't spent that much time with him, and more importantly the variety of man who tried to do that, to not learn to notice it. Even grandpappy Vandalf had been like that to a degree. Veigue certainly seemed determined to live up to his ancestors... the better ones at least.
Was she all right though? Perhaps ironically given that she'd been judging Veigue a bit for hiding his own feelings on the matter, she didn't really know the answer herself... but probably wasn't going to talk to Veigue about it just yet, hypocritically enough doing just about the same thing back to him. Not out of spite, but the simple fact that she had no idea what to actually think about all this. Well, maybe it would be more accurate to say that she already knew - she just needed to figure what it was she knew? Or something like that anyways. Outside of being frustrated with the ending and her own performance, Nayru wasn't really sure what she felt.
Still, she was alive and more or less unharmed, better off than Veigue anyways. Spiritual exhaustion got better with rest, human arms didn't. Didn't seem like it was an appropriate time to voice her concerns about the whole thing right now, so she opted for changing the subject a bit, rubbing her right shoulder a little self-consciously. "I'm fine." Her shoulder wasn't really injured per se, but there was a sort of phantom pain from where she had been bitten in dragon form earlier, and it was bugging the crap out of her. Nayru honestly had little to no experience with being injured in dragon form, so this was a bit of a learning experience.
...Though that might have ended up a more serious injury if not for Veigue. "Thanks to you, anyways. I appreciate the save." The dragon half smiled at Veigue, still working away at her shoulder as if it would somehow magically fix everything. It was probably some essence flow problem, she didn't know, not a god damn doctor. Dragon, M.D. Heh. "But hey, we did it, you know? Saved a lot of people's lives today." Turning her gaze over to the charred corpse of the chimera, Nayru paused for a moment, then continued in a lower tone. "And I didn't try to eat you this time, so, you know, that's a plus."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2015 15:11:43 GMT -6
Oh... right. That thing he still had no idea on how he did it. As Veigue stared at the palm of his gloved hand, that did serve as a reminder that he felt like something had changed a bit about him - heightened, rather. Since the fight had been over by now, and he'd gain ample amount of time to catch his breath and recover more, something about his body felt different than before. Like it was more lightweight than usual. It wasn't in a literal sense that his weight itself changed, but rather, it seemed like it was much more easier to move around...anything, really. His arm needed to get patched up, but in order to ease his worries about this odd, new-found feat of his, he had to test it out with some training of his own later. He was planning on doing that anyway in order to get closer on fixing his recurring "problem".
...Of course, it could have all just been plain old luck, something he normally lacked entirely. Until he figured things out, he wasn't exactly satisfied. But it did help him help Nayru in that one moment, so at least it had it's upside. Every little bit counts... But she was still giving him too much credit. In reality, Veigue knew that overall, he wasn't strong enough to be of any significant help, and she probably could have handled this job without him either way.
"I suppose so..." Hm. As much as when that usual truth rolls around about the real purpose of battles helped ease the mind, it wasn't enough for him to feel like celebrating over, what with not exactly fulfilling his role properly. With his arm not really bugging him as much anymore, he was finally able to at least allow it to hang on it's own. Something else was bugging him instead... the absence of Kenji. Wasn't until he looked back on the small distance he traveled to here to where he was last knocked down, seeing the sword laid out on the ground a couple yards away. He's so used to returning it to it's proper place after a battle that the unusual result of a battle that just occurred threw him off balance for a moment there, almost forgetting entirely that the sword flung out of his hand when he was hit by the blast and fell to the ground earlier. Well, he didn't have magnetic powers, so the sword wasn't just going to come to him.
After briefly walking over to retrieve it, the electric energy from within seemed to go dormant again. He at least knew how to call upon it's powers when he needed it, so not like it really mattered. However, feeling the power "resting" in a sense like this made him think about the latent potential he had yet to achieve just yet. If there's much of it to begin with. As he properly returned the blade to it's sheath, his gaze met the sky, at least finding comfort in the pleasant sight of the returning azure sky. Though the stare at the skies was nothing but brief as a deeper frown settled on his face, feeling that he had no more time to waste now. He wasn't going to improve on his failings by just staring into blank space. The sharp pain in his arm returned only to remind him that he couldn't just dive right back into his practice immediately, but the arm also wouldn't recover if he just remained standing around as well. As his hand's grip tightened on his resting blade, the emotion within him resonated with the sword as it had a sudden jolt in power externally for only that brief moment. He felt it himself afterward, but paid no mind to it.
"...At least lives will no longer be lost to that strange creature for now." Veigue spoke as he finally returned to Nayru, then looking at what remained of the unknown creature on the ground. "We should head back now. The people need to know that this beast is dead so they can rest easier."
|
|
|
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Oct 22, 2015 17:23:16 GMT -6
No direct lives, anyways. The damage it had done to farms, the livelihoods it had destroyed; the simple, brutal truth was that she and Veigue had probably had the easier job. It would be up the the people of Bern to rebuild, and that would take longer and be harder than just punching out some crazed creature.
And yet - while her heart bled for them, while she honestly wouldn't have minded settling down for a few years or decades to help them rebuild as she had in the past... she didn't have that luxury. Neither she nor Veigue could afford to 'waste' their time here, not even in pursuit of a brighter tomorrow. Not because it was inherently worthless, but because a thousand and one horrors stalked Elibe, and to settle down here would be to leave innocents all across Elibe to their predations.
So while it was in some ways a betrayal of the people here, leaving them to their fate, it was cruelty born of necessity. Sacrificing the few to save the many; as much simple selfishness in trying to hone their craft and eternally chase combat and self-improvement as much as it was ruthless pragmatism in maximizing the use of their talents.
Nayru craned her head back to stare up into the sky, watching the receding clouds as reality folded around itself to eradicate the disturbance that she had been responsible for, and suppressed the urge to sigh. They were supposed to be the glorious victors, returning home flushed with the glory of battle to happy villagers who would go home to live long and happy lives, and she was supposed to just be a knucklehead drunk on victory and power.
Well, she had the dumbass part down pat, but trying to take responsibility for a larger role in Elibe was... well, intimidating, to be perfectly honest, and a little depressing to even think about. It wasn't something you could just punch, and no matter where she and Veigue went, no matter how many people they saved, there would always be those they had failed by picking one location over another.
Maybe she was just overthinking it. On some level, Nayru knew that this wasn't something she could let herself worry about too much - it would break her long before she found a solution. And yet, while her mind said one thing, her heart said another, that she couldn't just forget about the weight of her decisions. That the simple fact she had the ability to make a change meant they she had the responsibility to do so; that even if she was useless politically or socially, she could do this, and so she must do this.
She wasn't sure she liked that line of thinking, and it also sounded too much like what Locke had been babbling about to work for her. She wasn't a leader of anything, and never would be. Simply a weapon, the sword that smites evil... ironically enough, perhaps exactly what she had resisted for so long.
But she needed answers first.
For now, though, Veigue was right. Leaving the people of Bern to panic for longer than necessary did no one any favors, and she would have time to herself to think afterwards. "You're right," came the simple response, almost absentminded in its simplicity and lack of content. And it was. Most of Nayru's attention was directed more at the chimera itself, wondering if they needed to bring back proof. A sizable portion of that focus was also spent wondering what else could or should be done with the remains. Trophies, souvenirs, alchemical reagents. Amelia would appreciate a gift, she thought, and that meant she needed one for Owain. Having some sorta giant death lion fang necklace would be cool too.
Unfortunately she knew literally nothing about any sort of alchemy or even magic weapon smithing, so that was kind of a no go. But it had been a good thought!
Actually extricating several teeth from the stupid thing was easier said than done, but with a bit of swearing and elbow grease, she managed to get the snake's remaining fang, both of the lion's largest teeth, and several smaller ones. Maybe she shouldn't have stepped on the snake's head like that. There wasn't enough left of the goat or dragon heads to scavenge much from them unfortunately, which was odd, she couldn't really remember having destroyed the dragon head, but then her memories of the fight were somewhat fragmented. And then there was the medallion.
Nayru didn't waste a great deal of time inspecting it before squirreling it away, but it was most assuredly crafted, a strange disc with arcane sigils she didn't understand etched on it. Unreadable... and yet also oddly familiar. Not absolute proof that something intelligent had triggered this event, but about as close as they were likely to get without a great deal more investigation, something she'd definitely do when she had time. Maybe not now, maybe not in the next decade, but eventually. This whole ordeal had raised more questions than it had answered, and she no longer had the luxury of running from the answers. And the voice in her head had not resurfaced after the fight. She had a feeling it never would again.
For some reason, that seemed unbearably sad. Nayru had no idea why.
|
|