Well at least the situation really didn't call for stealth. With the vast quantity of noise occuring all around them, you could probably march a parade of elephants around in full war regalia with a full band on each and it still wouldn't get close to the volume of thunder and screaming going on.
Well, really it was mostly thunder right now. The screaming was slowly turning into mere echoes as the dragon continued its mad rampage through the enemy.
Sprinting after Veigue, cloak flapping in the wind as he ran with all haste to the cover of the large rock. The stress and tension were tangible in the air around them, the atmosphere growing heavy and oppressive as they drew ever closer towards the dragon formerly known as Nayru.
Really though, Hayle was just hoping that the giant rock would provide them with enough cover while the few remaining rogues were sent screaming to Tartarus. If the dragon had some sort of magical ability to find them, then things might not go so well.
Nerves starting to get the better of him, hands clenching and unclenching on the smooth wood of his bow, he waited. Only when the screams stopped and the air went quiet could they even dare hope to approach her.
"I just really hope she's still in there, even just a tiny bit. Otherwise we'll just be merrily walking to our collective doom."
Really though, Hayle had no idea if his presence would help or hinder Veigue's attempts to get through to Nayru. If nothing else, running slower than Veigue if the dragon gave chase might buy him enough time to escape with his life.
From the sound of things, the fighting was still raging on. Veigue avoided looking from behind the huge boulder to prevent the risk of them getting detected. He wasn't sure at all as to how keen a dragon was to seeing something from a distance or sensing presence...if they had that ability. He could simply tell the outcome and current events of the battle by listening alone. Much lightning was still roaring fiercely and with all the battle cries still taking place, he'd just blow their chance if he jumped out and tried to talk to her now. It was somewhat of a cruel action to take to allow the rest of the bandits to be wiped out before doing anything, but he had little choice. Plus, those idiots were foolishly trying to fight Nayru despite their efforts being meaningless...somewhat similar to what he's doing now, but at least he's trying not to resort to a straight up fight. He already knows the outcome of that, and he wouldn't want to have he and Hayle's lifeless bodies to be there in the aftermath if Nayru eventually calmed down. He had to succeed no matter what.
Any lapse in his emotion or actions would bring disaster, keeping his mind as clear as possible to think and act carefully for what was soon to come. When Hayle spoke up, it was somewhat of a reminder of how risky and almost impossible his attempts were. But the little hope he had to save Nayru was enough to throw himself back into gear. "...Guess there's nothing we can do but hope. But if it does turn for the worse, I'll stall her long enough for you to escape. You shouldn't have to go down with me in this crazy attempt of mine." ...Crazy indeed, but his friend's fate was more important, and he had a duty to see this through to the bitter end.
Though suddenly, things became quieter during the course of a few more passing minutes. Nayru was of course still there, but he didn't hear anything from the bandits' side. Peaking from behind the boulder, there was nothing but the remains of the fighters and a battle-torn field. She definitely possessed unfathomable power to do all this and so quickly, but he couldn't allow his mind to shift to doubt. Nodding to Hayle, he was ready. "Now's our chance...we'll rush right in, but keeping enough distance to avoid any attacks she might deliver." And without much to say afterward, the swordsman bravely leaped from behind the boulder and made a quick sprint in the direction of the large dragon.
...And daaaamn was she bigger up close. It's a good thing he wasn't going to stand directly in front of her. He probably wouldn't survive long enough to get that close if he went towards her like that now. But he had an important task to do, slowing down and eventually halting in his tracks as he stared upwards. "Nayru! Listen to me. It's Veigue!" He shouted out as loudly as he could. It was an unfortunate attention grabber, but that...was kind of the whole point of this. "...You've got to calm down. The battle's over now! There's no longer a reason to fight, so come back to us!"
...Had to start somewhere.
Last Edit: Oct 23, 2014 13:19:31 GMT -6 by Deleted
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Nov 5, 2014 18:34:30 GMT -6
"Nayru!"
The clarion call rang through her, piercing the murky haze with a sense of purpose she had already forgotten how to feel. The sound - she had to strain to recognize it was a word - held no inherent meaning, but some detached portion of her fractured mind registered it as vaguely important. She should be sleeping. Was sleeping. Wasn't she? Trapped in the shadowed corridors of a mind far greater, the shards of a dissipating ghost struggled to comprehend the situation and her surroundings. A mind that was little more than the memory of a persona strove against the tide to comprehend itself, and in doing so began to define itself once more, as more than a vanishing current in another's.
The dragon's head jerked towards the noise, seemingly frozen in time as half of a limp corpse hung out of its mouth amidst a curtain of blood. There had been no more resistance, no more threats, and now there were.
Veigue?
After a moment of silence as the noise continued - the words meant every bit as much to it as the screams of those it had slaughtered and the begging of those it had broken - it turned entirely, facing the last two threats and beginning to walk towards them.
It's me!
There was no actual response to Veigue's words, the beast loping along directly at the two - not an outright charge, but its sheer size and length of stride ensuring that the distance closed uncomfortably quickly. There was a strange quality to its movement though, almost imperceptible hesitation that took it from a smooth gait to one that barely registered as slightly off.
Nayru raged within the confines of her own mind, a mere observer in the tragic finale of the final act of a cruel play. She could see through the eyes of the eyes of her captor, recognize the forms of her two remaining friends, but could do almost nothing under the tremendous presence of the mind that ruled this form. Every attempt to command her body to stop failed, sometimes completely, sometimes shown in momentary hesitation before fading into nothingness.
It slowed to a stop as it approached the two, looming terrible above them like an uprooted mountain, but not attacking.
Just as he was preparing for the worst after getting no kind of verbal response, the swordsman arched an eyebrow at the sudden turn of events. Nayru approached, but didn't attack yet. Did the words actually get through for that moment? For all their sake, he hoped that was the case. She was definitely much larger up close, and it also made having Hayle escape if this failed a little more difficult judging from how fast she closed the distance with the ground she covered alone. Veigue was getting a slightly different feeling from before, however. He was supposed to be afraid like a normal person, but he was more focused on returning Nayru back to normal than to let something like fear slow him down. Though Lena kind of made it a point in the past that "normal" doesn't seem to apply to him at all. To this day, he still couldn't tell if that was a compliment or her making fun of him.
The swordsman refrained from even reaching for his weapon, not only knowing that'd do more harm than good, but it would have been pointless anyway. As much as he didn't like having a pessimistic view on things, especially during battle...their previous enemies outclassed them all by weapons AND skill, yet they were blown away with ease, and within such a short time frame. Dodging any attacks she'd deliver were going to be much more difficult than he thought, but he wasn't going to just sit there and willingly join the bandits in the afterlife. It was about time for some form of action to take place, despite Nayru towering over them at this point.
Trying not to turn this into an insta-fight, Veigue properly cleared his mind before gazing upwards. Most of his words likely didn't get through, but something did. And that was more than enough for him to keep trying while she wasn't attacking. "Don't give into the madness. We know you're still in there somewhere, and I know full well that you don't desire this kind of destruction. Just listen to my voice and calm down. We'll work through this together."
He was only going off his gut at this point, but he had a strong feeling that something else was clouding her mind to behave that way. He wasn't an expert on dragons, so not like he had a clue as to what that'd be. But whatever it was, he had to pierce through it with his words, something his weapons were completely incapable of doing.
Skidding slightly to a halt behind Veigue, Hayle got his first up close and personal view of the thunderous beast towering overhead. How on Elibe had they managed to fight these magical beings back when they were everywhere?
Hands clenched and nails digging slightly into the tender flesh of his palms, it was still blatantly apparent that this was a situation unlikely to have a happy end. Well, unless you were a dragon, anyway.
At yet here he stood in the company of friends, Veigue trying to talk to the currently somewhat un-crazed beast. Well, un-crazed was not quite accurate, more like not actively trying to murder them at the present time.
It did seem to be working somewhat though. Of course, having the dragon directly overhead, its hot breath gusting around them hardly conductive at reducing stress but still. It hadn't eaten them yet.
Mouth dry, Hayle looked upwards to meet the great beasts gaze. Couldn't let Veigue do all the talking. Had to try something.
"Remember the time in the forest, Nayru. There are bigger issues at hand, if you were to lose yourself now, who would stand up for everyone else? All it takes for evil to reign is for good people like us to do nothing. Don't let the beast consume you, not without a fight."
Hayle had no idea if this was even going to work. For all he knew, Nayru was no longer in there and the beast was just slightly bored with wanton slaughter at the current time.
If this didn't help though, well, at least he'd tried.
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Nov 21, 2014 17:43:44 GMT -6
The hulking mass of muscle might well have been made of stone, the only real motion manifesting with each rasping breath, but it was a deceptive peace; within, an uncharacteristically-awake Nayru struggled to regain control of her body, vying for control with - herself? The dragon? There was a strange disconnect she did not understand, that was like nothing she could compare to what she knew of humanity. It was as if she was an alien to her own mind, existing as a flickering spark inside the body and brain of a body not her own. A completely ridiculous notion on more levels than she could fathom intellectually. It was her own body.
Admittedly, that statement would have had a lot more meaning to it if she actually had much control over it. As it was, the temporarily-bodyless dragon(?) was reduced to grasping blindly in the darkness, metaphorically speaking, or maybe literally - it was a little fuzzy given that she didn't seem to have vision or a sense of touch or a body, outside of what she could gather by... tapping into... her body. Was there precedent? She couldn't remember this having ever happened before. Usually, there was only the void awaiting her when she lost control, and sometimes scattered, blood-stained memories - impressions of images rather than full on members - when she regained human form.
Veigue's words should have had instant effect, but they seemed distant, empty. Nayru could hear them well enough, or at least she knew that her body had heard them, but the strangeness of separation gave them a strange air of being meant for someone else. As if she was eavesdropping on a conversation she was not meant to hear. But their meaning was real. And Hayle, for some daft reason, was still there too. Nayru found herself on the razor's edge of being very, VERY annoyed with both idiots for sticking around, and overwhelmed that they had in the first place. If they all got out of this alive, she was going to have choice words with them about committing suicide, even if they did mean well.
Madness. Standing up for others. Evil. Calm. Their voices, their messages, entwined. Destruction. ...Did she? She wasn't sure. She never really had been. Her negative emotions never really went anywhere; she did not act on them, but neither did they dissipate as they ought to, as the positive ones always did, simply sinking into her; locked into a vault from which there was no escape, at least in theory, though in practice it was more a dam awaiting the opportunity to break and unleash the tide within upon helpless innocents caught in her path. So... did she desire destruction, then? Was that her heart of hearts, the truth she had never been able to face? Nayru didn't think so - it didn't make sense in the first place, she wasn't THAT bitter and broken of a person - but she had no alternate explanation.
It didn't matter, though. Not really. It was a relevant question in its own right, certainly, but not appropriate for the situation at hand. Regardless of what the answer to that question was, she knew that she couldn't hurt Veigue and Hayle, even if she was going to have a good yell at them later for being fool enough to stick around.
But how did one do that? She didn't really have a lot of experience in taking over another dragon's body. Another her. Who was her? Nayru ruthlessly quashed that train of thought before it got further out of hand, focusing on trying to... extend her reach? Grasping tendrils of willpower, searching for purchase, for control, for resistance.
It found her.
The crushing wall of force hit from every direction, obliterating the psychic tendrils and battering her downwards, into darkness so absolute it had never known the desecration of light. There was a distant sensation of falling for an eternity, or perhaps it was only a moment, before light conquered shadow as she fell into - the nigh-concussed Nayru was unsure how to describe it, flashes of lightning streaking across her vision as she plunged downwards, but somehow it reminded her of an underground cavern she had visited once. There had been some... she couldn't remember the terminology properly, but her dim memories suggested the term 'phosphorous lichen,' a strange substance affixed to the ceiling and walls of the cavern that glowed in the otherwise-absolute darkness of the cave. Her guide had failed to explain how the phenomenon had worked, and she had never been able to find much of an explanation for it, but the concept had stuck with her, and now resurfaced at a strange time indeed.
Nayru hit the ground with a splash, which was her first inkling that it might not actually be ground, mostly because the ground was hard, and not made out of an unknown substance that vacillated between relative solidity and a sticky sort of thick tar. Possibly because this was all probably not real, or at least she didn't want to consider the alternative, the fall had no ill effect on her, and Nayru pushed herself up to her hands and knees, then into a sitting position, without any degree of discomfort or pain; the substance beneath her bubbled and boiled and solidified beneath her as she sat, evoking a strange feeling of surface tension rather than true solidity. Not that she was paying too much attention to that compared to her surroundings.
It was more than a cavern, Nayru realized in mute awe as her mind took in the alien landscape; she was inside a structure, a building of some description. Massive pillars rose into the murky shadow above her and the walls stretched out into the distance, but it was the blue glow that captivated her, emanating from countless lines and sigils and designs that meant nothing and everything all at once. A temple... or a tomb. The floor was the obvious exception; where the pillars around her were clearly defined, each design easily traced with the naked eye, and the walls further away seemed solid stone overlaid with the mystical carvings, the floor was the same murky black oil everywhere.
And the room - was it a room? - seemed to lose definition at the edges of her vision, making it hard to tell how far forwards or back it went as the walls seemed to fade into shadow in the distance. No floor, no ceiling, no front or back. Alien and yet eerily familiar in a way the thoroughly-confused dragon could not comprehend; she was absolutely certain she had never in her life explored ruins anything like this, even assuming the original had a proper floor - and it must have. The whole scene reminded her of... Nayru carefully stood, approaching the nearest pillar in a silent reverie as she tried to think. What? Like a flawed memory, she mused. Whatever this strange construct was now, it felt as though it was an artist's rendition of the original, a laboriously-reconstructed, but ultimately flawed, copy of the original.
A memory that focused on the surroundings, but not all of them? Familiarity warred with confusion as she cautiously raised her fingers to the pulsing lines of light crawling across the pillar before her, feeling as though she should recognize this, but did not.
The sound behind her was the first realization of how absolute the silence had been, and Nayru thanked it as she whirled around, ready to defend herself from... nothing.
Then a cavitation bubble formed several meters away, the black tar seeming to collapse in on itself as the center of the cavity formed into a profane pillar that rose unto heaven. Not a pillar. A person. Hair as dark as night, sludge dripping off it like a fountain, as the figure continued to rise and take form. Eyes forged of glistening emeralds, skin that seemed tainted by the strange oil; whether it was willful ignorance or blind foolishness, she did not recognize what was happening until it was almost too late.
Nayru's hand dropped in limp horror as realization finally dawned on her, breaking through the walls of practiced blindness as she met her counterpart's eyes. Lurid malachite that should have shone forth, but was instead drowned in hatred and shadow; rancor so great it seemed to twist the perfectly-neutral face into a rictus of hate. It was like staring into a mirror - one that showed not the present, but the past, a much younger girl who looked entirely different than the cerulean and silver of the her that was now. But it was the twists to the form that twisted the knife all the deeper; rather than staring back at her neutrally, the raw hatred evident in her counterpart's gaze was a force almost as overwhelming as that which had drawn her here, a palpable aura of danger in its own right. She was not staring into her own eyes, but that of something else entirely, a monster that walked within the body she had left behind so long ago.
Nayru's counterpart in the otherworldly realm and the hulking creature facing down Veigue and Hayle moved as one, sparing no times for words or warnings as the phantasmal double hurled herself at the confused mental model of Nayru and the dragon itself bared its fangs and brought one massive paw arcing inwards towards the two humans as devastating as it was telegraphed.
...Guess none of that got through that time. As soon as Veigue saw the massive paw coming straight for them, he knew that dodging it like a normal attack wasn't going to work, and he'd be more than flattened if caught by it. After all, this was different from evading a weapon. With her attack coming in an arc, it'd be foolish to try and dodge to his left. And he'd imagine that attack would send quite some force on the ground outwards in a destructive manner. He simply opted for running away as fast as he could before leaping momentarily and breaking into a roll in the dirt. Hopefully Hayle would get away as well, but the companion already proved himself the other day to be more than capable of looking after himself. Plus, after witnessing how Nayru laid waste to the battlefield earlier, he knew that this wasn't even a taste of what she was capable of.
But his next question to himself was how to proceed now. Things were already looking grim with their words not seeming to get through. Maybe he just wasn't saying the right thing to snap her out of the rage. As much as he wanted to pull his hair out from the almost impossible situation, he was too composed to show any lapse in focus. He'd just end up disppointing himself...and Nayru too if he got himself killed during this. With a silent sigh, he put his head back into the game and stood back tall, keeping his sights on his out of control friend as he couldn't give up now. He slowly began to approach again, but still refused to brandish steel. Not like that was going to do good anyway.
"...What could be sending her into a rage like that? Dragon or no, that's unusual. And there's got to be a way to calm her down..." Not particularly speaking to anyone but broadcasting his thoughts aloud, he needed to rely more on making full use of his brain than brawn. He just needed to get closer. He remembered a long time ago when he first witnessed her true power forcing itself out against their past enemies. If he had any chance in the world to find some kind of solution, he had to think back on those times and make use of it as much as he could.
Oh look. Impending doom made manifest in the form of an extra large scaly foot that just happened to conveniently arc in their general direction.
Clearly, talking was absolutely the best approach to this situation. It was only due to the sudden hit of adrenaline coursing through his lithe frame that he wasn't turned into a Hayle sized smear on the ground.
Of course, dodging the appendage was only half the battle. The accompanying gust of wind brought about by the furious swipe sent him careening through the air with all the finesse of a drunken parrot. The force of the wind sending him spinning a short distance away, only for Hayle to land in a crumpled heap in the dirt.
Wonderful. As if having that cursed ballista backfire on him wasn't bad enough, now he and the ground were intimately reacquainted again thanks to Nayru.
Really, this day was going so well.
Spitting out dirt and curses in what seemed to be equal amounts, he dragged himself off the ground, looking for as if he'd spent the last 3 years of his life alone in the woods and unable to bath.
A red hot spark of anger ignited in his overly stressed mind. Hayle was rapidly reaching the point of having all he could stand.
"DAMMIT NAYRU!"
One finger pointing accusingly at the oversized monstrosity, face flushed and body trembling with rage, Hayle would eventually look back on this situation and realise that it was in all likliehood, not the smartest course of action.
"WE'RE TRYING TO HELP! SNAP OUT OF IT!"
Sure. Yell at the dragon. It'll make the situation better. At the very least, Hayle felt like he'd have a slight moment of vindication before being turned into so much red goo.
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Dec 19, 2014 13:01:01 GMT -6
Nayru was immediately and exceedingly harshly reminded of what it was like to fight another dragon after centuries of time spent acclimating to pitiful human attacks that, outside of a few recent instances, had failed to even scratch her imperfect reinforcement. Her counterpart disabused her of such notions with thorough efficiency, landing a kick that sent tremors through Nayru's very bones, rattling her forearms and sending her reeling backwards with her hasty attempt at a block shattered in a single blow. The dull, jarring pain was immediate, but curiously enough, she found it didn't bother her as much as it normally would; the blade that had bit into her flesh earlier had already put her on edge.
Stemming her own backwards movement with one awkward step followed by another as she regained control of her momentum, Nayru had no more information on the situation on an intellectual level - but she understood what she needed to, and her hands were already rising as her other self recovered from her attack.
-----
The plume of dust and dirt from the massive impact partially obscured the scene, but the shadowed, hulking mass in its midst was still dimly visible, arcing electricity playing off its body to random clumps of airborne dirt and the earth beneath it. At the apex of the ascent of the makeshift sandstorm, there was a moment of silence before a literal wall of sonic force erupted forth, a physical blast of sound that turned the uprooted earth into countless tiny missiles that went flying away from the dragon as if swatted away by an invisible hand and sent small masses of dirt raining down around Veigue and Hayle alike.
Whether or not it had actually understood Hayle's witty repartee was dubious, but way it was looking at him suggested that he had made himself a target to some degree - whether because of the content of his aural suicide or simply the fact he had drawn its attention by being so loud.
That was when it charged.
-----
Nayru decided to give Hayle a very long talk about picking one's fights wisely later, on the off chance that they all survived this endless nightmare. It was very - disconcerting to be partially attuned to her(?) body's senses and yet unable to affect them, a strange cases of two simultaneous perspectives, each interfering with the reality of the other. Watching Veigue and Hayle dart about like ants seemed like a waking dream more than reality, and yet for all she knew it was her enraptured by her own mind.
She wasn't left to ponder the circumstances for long; at nearly the same time the dragon charged, so too did the thing wearing her flesh, dropping its previous kick for an artless punch - albeit one with the force of a mountain behind it.
But two could play at that game.
Nayru could feel the power flowing through her, unhindered by a stone that no longer seemed to exist but not overwhelming; a paradox in perpetuity, and yet seemingly sensible. Was it that she could use the power from this place? Was it that within her own mind she was free from the limitations of her real - fake - body? Using an assumed form to fight the true self... it was ironic, in a way, that she was the real Nayru, clad in a form that was not her, fighting a shadow of herself who wore the truth. Was that supposed to be meaningful? Mere coincidence? She didn't think she had any particular aversion to looking like that, the change had been for other reasons.
She met her counterpart's fist with a right hook of her own, feeling the grimace creep onto her face as the impact rattled her bones, but brought the other Nayru to a dead standstill as, for the first time, she actually fought back. Nayru still didn't have any real idea of what was going on, but instincts long dormant were stirring, disturbed in their endless slumber by the events of the last few months and finally awakening entirely.
Caught up as she was in the moment, Nayru only subconsciously noted the subtle change in the gait of the charging dragon, the momentary stumble as it continued barreling on towards Hayle; that seed of realization would take time to grow. Time that she did not have to waste. Bereft of her kama, the silver-haired dragon returned to unarmed combat with gusto, stepping in for a quick jab inside her opponent's guard that her other self contorted improbably to avoid, spinning away from her as she did with a foot already rising for another kick that Nayru only partially managed to catch with one hand.
It hurt, much like every attempt at blocking so far had, but the pain was itself a focus to keep herself in the moment, a hammering reminder of how much more would happen if she didn't. Not that she had much time to feel pleased with herself; the other Nayru was already back on the warpath, launching herself at the original like a beast on the hunt.
His train of thought was interrupted when he heard Hayle's sudden burst of anger. It left the swordsman a little lost for words at the moment as his eyebrow arched upwards in slight surprise. Kind of curious as to what was going to happen next, he looked back towards transformed Nayru to see if those words had any effect. Well...it sure did do something, all right...and he didn't like the look or sound of it. Letting his arms drop and quickly taking his sword in hand, he realized that he wouldn't be able to avoid all of the small chunks of earth raining down on them, but he could at least try to dodge some of them. They didn't look too deadly, but they'd sure pack a punch. He simply flipped, then rolled away as best as he could while he was still plucked with some of the debris. He could already tell some of them hit him hard enough to bleed in some places and bruise him a bit, though thankfully not severely. He was at least able to deflect some with his sword, too.
Whether or not Hayle managed to get out of the way, Nayru was locked on him. In a normal situation, Veigue could have simply tried to intercept her and focus her attention away from Hayle just by a few swings of the sword. But...that wasn't going to work against a dragon. Might as well get that thought out of his mind. But with how she's able to cover so much distance within a short time frame, He wasn't sure if Hayle could escape from whatever Nayru was going to do. Veigue didn't do anything immediately, but he made sure to stay as close as possible. He had a strange feeling that their out of control friend was going to do something more destructive than what she's been doing now, and he wanted to make sure he kept his word by making sure the archer didn't get himself killed in the sacaean's crazy plan.
...So guess it was time to stick back to the crazy plan itself. Words were getting through, but the responses they've received from the words turned out to be the opposite of what Veigue was hoping for. But something hit him as he took one more glance at Nayru, hoping that the recall in memory was what he needed to solve the whole situation. When he saw her transformed arm twice before in the past, it always seemed like Nayru was...fighting something to get it under control, based off her reactions. It was more apparent in the fight with Zarius when he noticed the pain she suffered. Still didn't have the slightest clue as to what she was fighting off, but at this very moment, she was probably struggling against something that's controlling her actions. Maybe blind rage or something else. Regardless, he just had to force his words to pierce through in order to reach her better. She seemed to grasp control of her power before when things calmed down after tensions. Though with her closing in fast, he didn't have time to say anything. He was just trying to anticipate her next move to make sure he and Hayle would be in one piece after it.
Well, now he had a dragon barreling headlong twards Hayle's ever frail and squishy frame. Clearly, yelling at Nayru had caused her to make the decision between staring contest and playing chicken.
Of course, Chicken is hardly a fair game when one of the competitors is the size of a castle and probably just as heavy. That said, it was really quite handy for getting the adrenaline flowing and getting the ever human fight or flight response to kick in.
Time slowed down for Hayle as the dragon charged in his general direction. The dragon was fast as they'd seen before, but this time was slightly different. The once smooth gait was somewhat awkward compared to her previous display of savage eloquence. Stumbling slightly mid charge, that slight movement was all it took for Hayle to formulate an even more suicidal plan.
But hey, the previous had worked really well by comparison.
The dragon was bigger and faster, but it was also mad. And anger usually wasn't conductive to clear thinking. And history would later come to believe that maybe, just maybe, neither was Hayle at this point.
It was a high stress situation though, so perhaps he could be forgiven a little.
Time returning to normal speed for Hayle, he made the snapshot, albeit stupid decision. Instead of running away from the dragon like most normal people would, he ran towards the dragon.
Specifically, between the front legs and then right out the gap in the back legs. The tail would be a slight problem but at this point Hayle was already invested in suicidal tendancies.
Besides, splitting the dragons attention was hopefully a good plan.
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Jan 3, 2015 22:26:12 GMT -6
Her stomach churned as Nayru tried desperately to think up the perfect solution that would let her end this waking nightmare and save Hayle in one brilliant checkmate - thinking, ruminating, but never settling on anything. She didn't understand the mechanics of this strange thoughtscape, if that was what it indeed was, nor how she could so thoroughly lose control of her own body even when her consciousness yet remained, and yet her lack of comprehension did not change the simple facts of reality.
There had to be something she could do, right? Nayru didn't much care for kings and gods, but she would happily have prayed to either at that point if she'd had the least idea which denomination to convert to. None was forthcoming, though, and her alter ego was upon her again, leaving little time to think.
The one nice thing about being the not-insane half of the fight, the silver-haired dragon thought absentmindedly as her ferociously anachronistic self approached, was that while she might not have the feral natural fury of her counterpart, she was able to think her approach to combat through to a degree - and the look on the face of her opponent when a grim-faced Nayru neatly sidestepped the leaping attack, grabbed the airborne humanoid projectile, and swung it over her shoulder into the inky shadows of the floor with a resounding - albeit soundless - thud was like music to her ears. The reverberations in the strange liquid were similar to a large rock being skipped across a pond as the first impact broke the other manakete's movement for an instant, rebounding to land mere moments later further away, with the spreading circular ripples crossing the otherwise-flat surface silently.
Any self-satisfied complacency at her textbook counterthrow was beaten from her head in an instant when their vehicle stumbled and nearly fell - on Hayle, as it so happened, which would have been a very unfortunate end to way to end that story. The dragon righted itself in part as the human passed underneath, losing sight of him immediately, but the thought occurred to Nayru at the same time it did to her counterpart; she could see the realization in her other self's eyes, intelligence flickering through the creature's hazel-green eyes.
There was a very simple solution to all of this.
The problem was that each of their solutions was, by necessity, mutually exclusive. In the same moment that she had realized that by winning this fight she might be able to regain control of her body, Nayru was utterly aware that the same thought had occurred to her counterpart. If she lost this battle... there would be no awakening.
A battle not just for survival, but for existence.
Nayru charged like an enraged bull, feeling more alive than she had in a long time as the stakes of her battle finally impressed themselves in her mind. One bounding step followed another, then became a leap as she propelled herself off the ground entirely with one fist cocked behind her in a display of wanton aggression that signaled its intent plain for all to see - and while the other Nayru might be feral, it - she? - was not in the business of proving itself a fool. She was already hurling itself backwards when Nayru came down like the hammer of godly thunder, the ebon liquid beneath her fist seeming to crack and shatter as if it were solid, even as a massive spray of the stuff erupted on all sides of her in a tattered curtain of shadow that blotted out the walls and dim light around her for a hesitant moment in time.
Then her other self came bursting through the gossamer wall separating them, drenched by the shadow but completely unphased by it.
Nayru met the rushing fist with her own head on, almost relishing the torrent of pain that coursed through her protesting left arm as the sheer shockwave of the collision splattered the curiously-floating wall of shadow around them in every direction as though an invisible hand had slapped it aside. Again she was the first to react, bringing her right up from the floor for a gut punch that connected squarely on the unsuspecting self with another explosive burst of force, enough to send it staggering back a few steps in agonized shock.
The metaphor went in strange directions as the other her seemed to ignite that very shock into its literal equivalent, the intelligence she had seen a moment earlier eclipsed by an avalanche of feral hatred as lightning danced across its hands.
Oh.
Well then.
Nayru took caution to be the better part of valor as she ducked to the side, narrowly evading the horizontal arc of the other dragon's electrically charged strike. The other hand was already coming at her as the first retracted, too close to dodge, so again Nayru was forced to improvise, driving her fist into the forearm of the arcing strike in an attempt to deflect it.
The leg strike came below her guard, something she would normally have done herself, and swept Nayru completely off her feet before she even processed it. She went down faster than thought, barely managing to catch herself with one hand on the ground and use her rotational momentum in a sweeping kick of her own that caught the other woman upside the cheek in a snap blow that jerked her head halfway behind her shoulder and lent Nayru a moment of reprieve as she pushed off with her hands, trying to create a bit of distance between herself and her opponent.
It wasn't until she had landed and started to right herself before she realized the other woman's mouth was open, something seeming to distort reality around it as her chest seemed to balloon out slightly larger than it should, and it was more lucky chance than reasoned realization that Nayru haphazardly threw herself to the side mere moments before a lance of silvery-blue light seemed to erupt outwards, the initial blast ballooning into a foot-wide stream of scintillating light as quickly as it had started that carved through the liquefied floor in a heartbeat, evaporating the strange stuff with a horrible stench that was - though she only realized it after a few moments of confusion - possibly the first actual external stimulus to reach her senses from their surroundings. Even the floor-liquid hadn't had a real sense to it, neither hard nor soft nor - how hadn't she noticed that before?
The thought caught her off guard, which in turn allowed the woman to catch Nayru off guard, returning the earlier gut punch with a sort of fevered relish that almost dulled out the intense pain of the electrical charge spreading through her body, burning away nerves, which in turn almost dulled the sensation of being driven through a solid stone pillar at the speed of thought.
...Not really, though.
Pain was immediate and overwhelming, and in retrospect Nayru suspected she might have blacked out for a second there before she didn't really remember hitting the wall she was currently indented in, but she was having trouble making sense out of any of her senses, most likely because her head had also hit the wall - and the pillar, she assumed, not that there was much left of it to check - and that probably meant she was concussed. It was funny how in the middle of a totally unrelated situation, small parts of your brain continue working as if nothing had happened. She couldn't even see straight, and yet here she was, debating the possibility of a concuss-oh THERE the pain was!
Oh. THERE the pain was.
The cough was involuntary - she couldn't move her head to look down and see if she had coughed up air or blood or maybe both - but the jolt of movement as her body convulsed helped marshal enough pain and sensation from her body's contact with the wall to focus her mind, which in turn helped her focus on surveying the situation, which in turn conveyed the extremely useful information that evil-her was charging again with what was, in retrospect, a fairly ironic copy of Nayru's own opening jump-punch combo. If her head hadn't been made out of cotton and her tongue of lead, she might well have tried to say something witty, but instead Nayru gurgled and slid off the wall only partially by her own design.
It turned out she had some control of her body left, and so when the grim spectre slammed into the wall where she had just been lodged with its fist, Nayru pulled herself up through sheer orneryness, spun on the spot, and drove her fist into the creature's back with all the vindictive vengefulness of a maiden spurned, relishing the sudden tensing of her counterpart's body as it was ground through the stone like a knife through butter.
Her strength gave out abruptly, sending Nayru flat on her backside as her legs simply ceased to function for a moment, but after a massive twinge of pain that blacked out her vision and mind alike for a moment they seemed functional enough again, and she in surprisingly good condition - relatively speaking - for having been herself pummeled through that much stone that Nayru managed to unsteadily right herself. At this point, she honestly had no idea if this was anywhere near the realm of the realistic or simply a fanciful mental battle of will; it had been so long since she fought anyone capable of hitting that hard, or been able to cut so absolutely lose without losing control of herself, that she wasn't really sure where her limits lay.
The darker Nayru stumbled out of the grisly tomb timed almost as if to focus Nayru's attention on the battle at hand, but it was clear that it - she - was not in stellar condition either; trickles of blood ran down her face and the front of its naked, tattered body, its movements as sluggish and almost hesitant as hers of a moment ago.
For a moment, Nayru thought she saw something else in its eyes, heard something that could not be conveyed by sound; sorrow, regret, pain; terror, too, in a strange fashion that brought regret to her own mind for reasons she couldn't explain. There was almost a moment of - it was gone before she could identify anything, but the tiny glimpse Nayru had seen unnerved her beyond reason. Why? She couldn't understand it - remember it - but for an instant she had almost understood... something. Something important. Critical. To what, she wasn't sure.
-----------
Left to its own devices, the dragon itself had picked itself up and slowly approached Hayle and Veigue, its ferocious demeanor completely vanished - replaced by a sort of mute curiosity one might expect more from a cat than the rage-consumed war-beast of a minute before.
He wasn't exactly sure what Hayle was thinking by getting on the other side of her, but whatever the plan was, he succeeded in doing so. During that whole thing, he did realize something a little strange about Nayru that caused him to stop moving entirely to assist his other companion. It was like her body was confused on what it wanted to do, and seeing how the moment of it not doing much at all made him realize that something even bigger was going on mentally. At that point, he was sure both he and Hayle were going to be fine, and that put his mind at ease long enough to focus much clearly. He walked a little closer, but slowly as he allow his mind to wander off to think very carefully. This moment here decided it all, and he was certain that he had it all mostly figured out now.
The dragon's movements may seem out of control, but that was just it; it was being controlled. The main thing that ran across his mind was that Nayru was always fighting against -something- to get her power under control back then. If Nayru was truly gone in there, Hayle would have been dragon food right there and now. That truly meant that she was in there somewhere, and was trying to regain control of herself over whatever else was controlling her body before. Some sort of mental battle was going on in there and the fact that she was in there fighting back for control all alone disturbed him greatly.
But that didn't mean he had to just sit there and do nothing. As the dragon seemed to regain itself, something still didn't seem quite right. Nayru was silent in her approach compared to the roars of terror he's gotten used to at this point. There was just an odd overall calming vibe he was getting as the dragon still seemed a bit confused, but pressing on to fight regardless. Did that mean anything he said at this point would have a bigger impact than before? No longer standing for sitting by idly thinking about it, the swordsman quickly sheathed his blade as he continued closing in slowly, as if he was in-tune with a natural instinct of knowing that this had to work. And if it failed, then it was just that; the end.
"...That's your body, Nayru. Don't allow anything else take control over it. You're stronger than anyone I know, so I've got faith that you can win it back." He had no idea how effective his words would be, but he spoke from the heart. His eyes had spark of determination; hellbent on making sure he tried his absolute best in making sure he supported from the outside from whatever was going on inside. "As long as I draw breath, I'm never breaking those promises I made. Whatever you're fighting in there, remember that you've got us supporting and believing in your strength. You can't lose, you hear me?"
Well, his suicidal move appeared to have paid off. Whatever titantic fight was currently going on inside the dragon was coming to a rapid close, as evidenced by the sudden shift in temperament and behaviour in the colossal lizard. Its sudden change in demeanour from rampaging unnatural disaster to inquisitive curiosity was surprising to say the least.
At this point in time, it was really all Hayle could take. Despite the dragons rampage being comparitively brief and uneventful, the stress of the whole situation was taking its toll on him and with adrenaline rapidly dissipating from his system and being replaced with exhaustion over the whole affair.
"I'm not sure I can handle much more of this," he grumbled under his breath. "This is not what we were hired to do."
Dragging himself off the ground, he slowly made his way over to where Veigue was standing, apparently having a conversation with the dragon turned housecat. Clearly the best idea at the time, seeing as who know what it would take to set it off again. Heck, even if Hayle wasn't tired out of his skull right now, he wasn't sure he'd have the energy to make any quick movements to potentially restart its rampage anyway.
Well Veigue wasn't eaten yet, so that was a good sign. Turning to his erstwhile companion, Hayle couldn't help but make some wry remark about the whole situation.
"Well, we appear to have the beast tamed, but now what? Do we put a collar on it and use it to keep away would be burglars? You do realise that you're going to be responsible for feeding and talking it for walks, right?"
Post by Nayru Al-Saiduq on Jan 19, 2015 8:52:06 GMT -6
Veigue's words rang through the shadowed realm, carving through the awkward détente like a blade. It was the first time that Nayru had actually been able to focus on the outside from within, outside of a few scattered sounds and images, and the familiar voice was remarkably comforting given how alien her surroundings were. And yet, in a strange way, they too were oddly familiar; the black temple and shadowy halls of their surroundings ate at the edges of her memories, hinting tantalizingly at... something.
The other Nayru, for her part, reacted by crumpling to the ground in a muddled heap, eerily like a puppet with its strings cut, and beginning to cry.
The look of absolute despair in her face as she collapsed tore at Nayru's heart, shattering her moment of self-congratulatory victory with brutal efficiency. It was one thing to have your opponent be miserable about losing, but seeing a look like that in your own face was disconcerting to say the least. The whole situation grated at her on multiple levels, it had since the start, and Nayru was only able to list a few of them; petulant annoyance at not being able to 'win' the fight on her own, not understanding why she had an evil twin kicking around in her head, and not understanding what any of this had to do with her dragon side all came to mind, but there was also an aggravating undertone that something about the whole situation was wrong, that there had been another solution if only she had been able to find it.
The whole thing would have been simpler if the evil-her had just attacked the minute she dropped her guard, but as far as Nayru could tell, her doppelganger's complete defeat had been internalized, with no attempt whatsoever to launch a sneak attack or make a final bid for existence... which just made her feel all the worse about this. It was like kicking a puppy, except that puppy was yourself, and you had just killed yourself. Except it was your best friend who had - she gave up the whole metaphor thing as a bad job, feeling remarkably like a parent dealing with their crying child. A child that had tried to kill her, and was - hopefully not actually her child, because she really didn't like the idea of unknowingly spawning evil mental selves in the future.
Completely lost on what she was actually supposed to do, Nayru settled for taking the two cautious steps it took to close in on the other Nayru, then dropped down herself and carefully put one arm around the other her in an awkward sort of hug. She wasn't really sure what it was supposed to accomplish, but would have felt too much like a bully otherwise. Despite the multiple lacerations in the other woman's skin, the sickly wet slick of blood, she was surprisingly warm to the touch, as soft and... real as her memories of her real body.
{Why?}
Nayru felt the girl's throat move, could see the movement of the mouth out of the corner of her eye, but the word was spoken in a language not born of sound; she felt the words, understood them, but could not hear them. It was a surreal experience, much like the rest of this series of events. She could feel the sheer anguish in the girl's tones, but not hear it; telepathy, linked minds, sorcery, or simply some idiosyncrasy of existing within a shared mind, the silver-haired dragon knew not.
While the voice was her own, there were subtle differences that made it as alien as it was familiar - as much as could be given they seemed to share both body and mind.
{I was so tired of sleeping... I wanted them to be my friends, not yours... I'm sorry.}
Sleeping?
The other her's voice was had... warped, changed slightly; it was exactly her own, the intonation and diction absolutely identical. But it was a her of centuries past, gaining a childlike air of a much younger Nayru, the one that had lived in Arcadia for so long rather than the one who had left it convinced she was a woman. Guileless and genuine, like she had lost the ability to be... and in its simplicity there was truth, the same anguish she had felt in its defeat, and Nayru suddenly realized that it had not been so despondent about losing, but about... more. She wasn't sure the full extent of it, but she had dealt with children enough to recognize when a kid was apologizing for starting trouble, and this one... was.
"It's alright," she quietly responded, not entirely sure what she was forgiving her counterpart for. But... Veigue and Hayle were alive, and more or less unharmed at that, despite the dragon's best efforts. Or... not best efforts, given that the entirety of its offensive had been staring at them, blindly charging at Hayle, and not using anything resembling a breath attack on them. At this point she was getting even more confused about what exactly had just happened, so Nayru stopped thinking about it, wrapping her remaining arm around her other self in something more resembling a real hug.
{I'm scared... I don't want to disappear. It's too dark.} Her voice(?) caught, giving Nayru a second to try to internalize the words, but picked up a moment later with a sort of despondent admission now tinging her tone. {But maybe it's for the best. I should never have existed.}
"I'll live on for you, then," Nayru surprised even herself by responding without thinking. She didn't understand half of what her doppelganger was talking about, but that anguish was all too familiar to a dragon who had questioned her own existence on more than one occasion, who would have ended her own life long ago if she had been courageous enough to try. But now she had Veigue, Hayle, Elly to protect... and a perplexing persona to live for. At this point, she didn't much care whether she was talking to her evil side or a child personality; the other Nayru really was like a child terrified of the darkness in their bedroom, save for the fact that this darkness would not relinquish what it took. She could understand its fear all too well from experience, knowing every time she transformed that it might be her last glimpse of reality, a dream she could never wake from again.
{It's with kindness that you hurt people, isn't it?} What? The other Nayru's voice was a strange mix of reproach and tears, as if she was moments away from breaking down entirely. She wasn't given the opportunity to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, much less an explanation for the entire ordeal, before her counterpart said one more thing. {"And so the shadow becomes the true self."}
There was a sort of tired finality to the words, almost amusement, as if it was in equal parts a simple statement of fact and a cosmic joke that flew well above her head. For the first time since collapsing, the fallen alter ego(?) moved, embracing her in turn.
"...Thank you, Nayru."
Nayru had barely registered that those last few words were actual words - sounds rather than simply understood - before the other her simply dissolved into the strange black liquid she sat on in one abrupt instant, with a quiet sigh that sounded for all the world as if she had been continuing to exist through sheer willpower, and finally allowed herself to drift away... or apart.
The rush of information that began a moment later was overwhelming.
-------------------
Something flickered in the dragon's eyes for a second as it stared down at Veigue, drooling in a way that might have been vaguely endearing if it wasn't about the size of a house, and therefore its drool was less of a cute little side note and more causing a small but growing puddle at its feet that might, in time, consume all Elibe. The continent was spared its grisly end when light suddenly began to burst from the dragon's golden scales, emanating outwards for a moment before seemingly being dragged inside, as body seemed to begin to shrink as well; a moment later the light all seemed to erupt outwards with the brilliance of the sun itself, and when it dissipated a few seconds later, a bleary eyed Nayru was standing there unsteadily.
But it was a different Nayru than the one that had left Veigue and Hayle behind to secure their retreat; shorter, less curvaceous, with thickly tanned skin covering a visibly toned body, the muscles that had never been visible in her previous form now hinted at in the surface - she looked no more a warrior than she had before, but while she was certainly less imposing and eye-catching, there was a sort of coiled strength to her body that was much less well hidden than it had been before. There were also strange sigils on her arm that had not been there before, an arcane symbol that looked similar to a tattoo on her left arm near the shoulder - and what Veigue might recognize as the exact same stone she had worn as an earring for so long, now attached to a necklace.