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[Rafv Nin IV]

((This is a prelude. When I'm finished, I'll join a different thread.))

Naut' Som Os woke in the nighttime. It was always nighttime where he lived, six thousand feet underneath the ocean in a narrow trench. The nearest landmass was Gulgottir, four hundred miles away, but Naut' Som Os had never seen it. In fact, Naut' Som Os had never seen anything, because he was blind--a fact that meant little, since he lived in perpetual darkness. Generally, Naut' Som Os woke only to leave his trench, and left his trench only to hunt. But today, he had a visitor. Naut' Soy Naut', heir apparent to somebody Naut' Som Os knew well not to annoy, had come to receive a history from one who had experienced it firsthand. Or, in this case, secondhand. Regardless, Naut' Som Os spoke, softly and methodically, of Arsencia's past.

"When Mara thought back on that day, she would realize similar her destiny had been to all the other destinies in Arsencia's history. She would note, with a twinge of regret and disgust, that every rising hero or despot seemed to start the journey from a tavern. She would understand, also, that perhaps this was not because of a tavern's unique propensity for churning out greatness, but rather merely a product of how incredibly dull Arsencia had been. The land races, quarantined as they had been for so many eons in the barrens above the ocean's surface, simply had little better to occupy their time than drinking and warring. In between wars, all they could do was drink. So it was only natural, Mara would realize, that her tenure on the earth would begin to end inside a tavern: that's where everything above water began.

"But, of course, Mara didn't have such powers of foresight then. In fact, she still doesn't; poor girl. She's stark raving mad now, did you know? Anyway. She liked taverns, as much as she could like anything. They were dark. They let her hide. If the land races couldn't see her well, they assumed she was human, which is partially true, I suppose. She sure doesn't belong here. At this tavern, she asked, as she always did, for a glass of water. And a fair dish of salt. And she paid more than it was worth. She didn't eat anything.

"Mara sipped at her saltwater for only a few minutes. A man came up to her, a human male, and spoke crassly. She didn't respond. Mara told me that the man thought she was a prostitute, but I don't entirely understand what that entails. Did you know some of the land races have to join together in order to spawn? Like whales, but without being supported by the water. It's strange. She never told me the entirety of the conversation. All I know is that she stood and turned and he leaned in close, and she snapped her jaw, ripping his throat out with her teeth. Mara can be savage sometimes; she kills by surprise, not by the chase.

"And then she ran away. Yes, she ran, she didn't swim, you can't do that on land. She sat on the rim of the village well and sobbed, staring at the silver rings in her hands. She never told me why. She said her head hurt, but I think she was false when she said that. Falseness is something she picked up while on land. But soon she fell into the well. And that's where the Nautilus spoke to her first."

Naut' Som Os cut off, all eyelids glued shut but staring off into the distance as if he could see. Idly, he pivoted into the water. Naut' Soy Naut' spoke after several minutes' wait. "Tell me more. Why was she chosen? What could she do that we can't? My father said she was a failed symbiosis. Why would the Nautilus want to merge land and sea? Where did she vanish to in the years between her terms at the asylum?"

Slowly, Naut' Som Os rotated to face Naut' Soy Naut' again. "Those questions...I do not know the answers to them."

"Then you are worth nothing to me. You are worth nothing to my father. You are worth nothing."

"I am an old one. Why do you badger me?"

Naut' Soy Naut' did not reply. Instead, he drifted toward the exit of the crevice in which Naut' Som Os lived. As he neared the gap, he abruptly turned about, propelled with his fins, unhinged and rehinged his jaw in a vicious display of ferocity. Tonight, the tubeworms would feast on Naut' Som Os.

[Rafv Nin IV]

At the Marianna Depths Healthy Living Community, no sane person ever visited--including the staff. Three times each period Naut' Scept roused himself from idle drift and propelled himself through the murky depths toward that heap of half-rotted meat that never seemed to grow or shrink. Thirty-four other nurses did the same, supervised by the Warden, then snatched bits of flesh a flung them onto the silver plate that formed the opening of the Marianna Depths crevice. Three times each period, The Warden and his select helpers fought back the lunatics beneath the cap over Marianna Depths, opened the plate, and dumped the foul meat into the Community. Evidently, there were things down there, but Naut' Scept had never cared to fashion a light and peer in.

Naut' Scept did know, however, that every month or so, when a person was found to be irredeemably mad, The Warden dumped the new arrival in with all the other crackpots. And somehow, beneath that metal plate, there was a society--or lack thereof--completely different from any other in the Realm. It was vicious, vindictive, and savage, and nobody ever escaped from it: even the demonstrably sane children of the Community members.

Only two weeks ago, Naut' Scept had learned that lesson from the Warden. He had rested near the plate's crease during a work break. It pounded and screamed beneath, as it always did, disgusting animal howls from the crazies beneath. But it also pleaded ("I'm not like them, I'm not like them..."), and Naut' Scept listened for several minutes. The Warden noticed. With a wicked expression on his snout, the Warden swished his tail side-to-side and, soon enough, the Warden slowed before Naut' Scept and informed him kindly that "whatever lives down there stays down there", and that if the Community members escaped, none in the Realm would be able to hunt in peace.

This time period, Naut' Scept flung meat down the trench, as he had done for years, and turned away when finished. It would be the last task he ever completed.

* * *

"Carve...carve...fever...strip them...I know they're here..." Muttering wildly, Nocheluz Mar crept away from the noises around her, from the others and their demon faces. She inhaled water and coughed it out, remembering her gills and the strange thick air she had not been able to breath properly since the sharkmen crammed her. They bashed her. They bashed the plate. They did now. They were coming. Cram. Thick. Grind.

And she couldn't move. The rock had joined with them. Mara couldn't trust anyone, even things that weren't people. Her hands moved independently of her will; she couldn't even see them anymore. Shivering in anxiety, Mara gazed blankly as her hands flew in front of her face. Stay down. No! Stop!

But the hands crept up regardless, propelled by the thousand living creatures that constituted what had once been distinct fingers. Faintly, Mara could still decipher the trace of silver behind the mollusks and crustaceans that swirled in front of her. Mara retched.

YOU ARE DISGUSTED BY YOUR DESTINY, GIRL? WHAT TYPE OF SERVANT ARE YOU?

No...please...master. Just let me go back...

YOU ARE WORTHLESS. YOUR TIME HAS LONG PASSED. IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO BECOME WHO YOU WERE MEANT TO BE.

I know they're here...I want to be human again. Please. I've done so much for you.

AND YOU WILL DO SO MUCH MORE. YOU ARE THE SYNTHESIS. YOU WILL DO MY BIDDING. YOU HAVE NO CHOICE.

Dimly, Mara could see her hands diffuse, the creatures swimming away, leaving behind ten silver rings which fell down into the depths; the last of Nocheluz Mar's former life disappeared in the darkness. The creatures grew, ate her flesh, became her flesh, and Nocheluz Mar disintegrated, replaced by a beast that, to this day, no land-animal has ever glimpsed and lived long enough to gasp. Such was the power of the Nautilus that every disgusting madman in Marianna Depths became just a piece of the swirling mass, oscillating like smoke and blood and fangs combined, surging upwards in an impressive helix, through rock, plate, mud, and water. The Nautilus consumed, integrated, and destroyed, straight vertically through the surface of the waves. When it arrived at Gulgottir, the land-inhabitants would cringe before the mightiest storm to ever hit land.

* * *

Such were the visions Nocheluz Mar discovered outside of the tavern, when her hands were still her own. Such were the horrors that Naut' Som Os knew, but never told.

((Didn't turn out nearly so neat as I'd hoped. Oh well. I tried.))

Edited by Rafv Nin IV, 03 December 2010 - 09:25 PM.

[Rafv Nin IV]

The world drizzled on its own, every stride like bushwhacking through dense jungles of cloud, and Mara thanked the same weather that every local cursed: it meant that there were no others out for evening strolls in the dreary weather that today hazed the Fenrig state. Mara's robes, thick but frayed, became saturated as she knelt by the village well. Water streamed off of her brow, dripped from her chin, washed away the salt from her tears and the blood on her lips from the man whose throat she had, moments before, eviscerated. Mara had murdered.

And yet, her first of many forthcoming sins did not cause Mara the anguish she demonstrated. Mara bowed her head towards her hands, as if to cover her face in grief like the humans did--like she had done a life ago--then jerked upwards, slashing her left fingers with the claws tipping her right ones, and relished the pain as confirmation of her humanity...or whatever it was that she had. Red leaked from her knuckles, staining silver rings on her thumb and first three fingers. With disgust, Mara watched her leftmost digit writhe, eagerly lapping up the fluid. The trace of the silver ring and the seashell that had crowned it were still visible underneath the creature, but Mara did not particularly notice that fact. Instead, she stared, fixated on her finger.

It was alive. And it wasn't her.

Gripping the ring tightly, she tugged to remove it, but it wouldn't budge. Lifting the abomination to her mouth, Mara gnawed it, grimacing at the pain but determined to remove the thing from her hand--even if it took her finger with it. She dug into the work with resolution.

Focused, Mara did not notice the uncanny condensation of the mist around; it hugged her even tighter. At this point, her robes would have created a small pond if wrung. In a snap instant, the cloud clogged Mara's nostrils. She choked, and the haze coalesced further into a tight ball of water, which interjected between her fangs and the living finger, seemingly of its own accord. Her hand shot forward from the force of the stream, smashing into the stones of the well with a dismal crack.

The hopelessness of it all struck Mara again, and her tears began again in earnest. Three eyelids slid shut, one after the other, and she tumbled into the well. There, she dreamed.

* * *

DO NOT CRY, GIRL. IT'S NOT YOUR TIME TO DIE. YOU HAVE MUCH TO CLAIM.

You're lying. I see who you are, what you will do to me. Don't pretend you aren't lying. Just let me go or end it. Please. Please.

YOU SAW ONLY WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU RESIST. I SAVED YOU FROM THE WAVES LONG AGO. I CAN DISCARD YOU TOO. BUT I WOULD GREATLY REGRET IT.

That sounds like I'm some sandwich you've dropped on the ground. I'm a person.

IGNORE THE SEMANTICS. YOU CAN DIE HERE A MADWOMAN. OR YOU CAN EMBRACE YOUR DESTINY. BECOME WHAT I MEANT YOU TO BE.

...What do you want me to do?

GO TO MIRMIDA. THE LAND-RACES ARE QUARRELING THERE. I NEED YOU TO HELP THEM DESTROY THEMSELVES. PICK YOURSELF UP.

((Time to join a thread.))

Edited by Rafv Nin IV, 09 December 2010 - 04:36 AM.