Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in adusta, @ 2010-12-13 22:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | aeotha easaahae, singularity, skandra tyullis |
the alchemist (aeotha)
Sound was roaring through his ears. Skandra could hear voices screaming together. A thousand of them. A million of them. Too many at the last for him to count. Was this death? That was what Gershul had been trying to warn him of. This was death, and Skandra was in the process of that death, experiencing it fully on his way to the depths of hell. This was the only explanation that flashed through his mind. He was falling, alone, in a sea of infinite black. Nothing there to help him. Nothing there to save him. Only the fall, and the screaming as he soared deeper into the abyss. He should have been terrified. Instead what he felt was a strange sort of peace. If this was the end... it was an end he deserved. It was an end that he should have seen coming, long ago, when the knife had been clutched in his hand and the faces around him were jeering for his death.
The first, but not the last.
He was on the ground.
There was no sensation of impact, nor anything to suggest that he'd stopped falling. One moment he was carrying momentum, feeling wind whip against his hair in a place that should have had no air, and the next he was facedown. His hat spilled from his head, rolling on the earth. The earth. Green grass kissed his face. Reminded him of how itchy it was, now it was mangled by more than one injury. Skandra flexed his flat hands, curling his fingers into that grass. Breathing deeply of the land beneath him. It was the world. His world. It had to be, didn't it? One eye opened, slowly, with a groan that escaped his lips. He had wanted to feel the delicate earth beneath him again. No matter how likely it was that they'd done something few had ever dreamed of doing, he was glad to be here. Glad to be back. No. He was dying, wasn't he? Skandra opened both eyes. Rolled onto his side. Another groan escaped his lips.
He was face to face with Líobhan. Her eyes were half-open, and her lips curved into a smile, and her robe in disarray. Skandra's eyes lingered on one of those perfect legs perhaps longer than they should. What he saw was a woman who was alive. Thankfully, and unlike her companion, she'd survived. She was mouthing words. He thought he understood half of it. Didn't matter. He could still here screaming and shouting in his ears. What had they done to get back here, and this way? He wanted to believe that everything was all right again, that they were not going to be in any further danger, but he knew that was a lie as soon as they thought it. On the journey there, they'd been confronted by all manner of strangeness. Now, on the way back, was this more of the same? Was he dreaming? Was Líobhan?
Where was Aeotha?
He found his feet quickly enough, bedraggled and bloodied, coat hanging damp from his shoulders. Skandra forgot his hat for that instant. Instead he was scanning their surroundings. Perfect green field. The grass was high, up to his calves, and it was sunny out. They were surrounded on either side by high foothills. Where there was no grass, there was gray stone drenched in green and white moss. Slick clouds hovered overhead, blue, bumpy like stones in a riverbed. The clouds were patchy, yet they were threatening rain, and you could only try to get out of their way. Only then did Skandra pick up his hat. So far as he could tell, he and Líobhan were the only souls in existence. This couldn't be - his eyes were narrowed, scanning the face of the rock that surrounded this valley, when he saw it. A rope, blowing in the wind, looking as some twisted and overgrown worm might.
This was where they'd climbed down, wasn't it? Or was he dreaming about that moment? They were further down the valley. Too far away to shout for soldiers. Then again, if this was the place... the black bubble was gone. He'd done it, hadn't he? He'd destroyed Gershul's infernal machine and brought them back to reality. There were figures dotting the ridge where Skandra and Aeotha had climbed down. Where was Aeotha? He heard it, then, all of a sudden. A crack. Almost like a tree exploding in frost, the sap expanding beyond belief. There was Aeotha, then, on her hands and knees with that odd staff beside her. There were more shapes dotting the green. One of them had to be Shantar. Yet Aeotha was only a handful of feet away, so it was to her that he started moving.
Those snaps were echoing across the valley, now, appearing out of nowhere.
Skandra was halfway there, Vel hanging limp in his hand, when he heard it. There was a sound unlike any he'd ever heard before. And he knew it well. The hat was tugged onto his head. The Vel was shoved into his belt, just to the left of his belly button, well within reach. The sound was Gershul using some kind of potion on his spear. The sort of potion that Skandra had hoped never to confront again. He knew before he turned that he would be facing Gershul. He knew before he turned that he was just exhausted enough to wish that Gershul had died. There was the old man, seething, his shoulders rising and falling beneath that tattered brown coat.
The old man was just pulling on his own hat.
"Skandra!" Gershul's scream seemed far too loud, given the distance.
"Think he's pissed," Skandra muttered to no one.