Post by sesnernioth on Dec 23, 2020 19:49:00 GMT
The Separation of Beauty and Serenity
Transmundane
‘Reaching beyond or existing outside the physical or visible world’
Hiklal felt a rapping at the base of their skull as, what felt like silken hands, wrapped themselves about their neck. Hollow eyes twitch, then turn to slits, and finally creasing--the elves’ brow turns rigid and compresses as a sheer and sudden pain begins at the base of their skull.
White-pain!
Eyes wretch open, and teeth bare, an aspersing fire ignites beneath their skull. Hiklal swore they heard a sickening tearing sound, but it was all in their head… all in their head.
Pulsing…
Blood pulsing...
Then, the pain simmers down, gradually fading away.
Hiklal’s vision prickles with white specks, before shadows begin to close in, and all the while their stomach churns. Slumping forth, the elf slid off the side of their saddle, clattering against the mossy ground with a jolt of their limp body.
Hiklal bends their elbow, and with a splayed hand, pushes it to the moist ground, and pushing their body up slightly. Hollow eyes, like ebony, shift about in quick succession. Back and forth, back and forth. It is then through clenching teeth, a haggaring, almost ruined feminine voice manifests, “I must feed…”
Nox bent his head low, pressing his nose to Hiklal’s silver hair, and snorts almost demandingly. That yellow, almost reptilian eye glaring at it’s master, telling them to get up.
Hiklal grit their teeth, gripping their companions' bridle, and with a twitch of corded neck muscles, aids the elf upward. Hiklal leans against Nox, panting, and finally reaches for the reigns, saying;
“This dichotomy. Curse Malkithukhaladsar and his fear of this false prophecy! He is no king of mine. Never,” they rasp hoarsely.
“This irreality - Her silken hands at my throat - they are not of this realm, but another. And She always watches. Always watches me.”
“My reality is… convoluted in it all. Blood must be spilt for the true God Khaine to stay Her away. More runes etched into flesh to stay Her Away. But these are not my goals, my ambitions or desires…”
Hiklal takes a large breath, nestling their face against their great beast before, in elven grace, arcing upward into the saddle. A shadowy cloak snapping in their swift motion, and once in the saddle, Hiklal pulls their hood up, speaking to themself again, saying;
“My goals are to cast the wicked to the Pale Queen, my ambitions are power, and uncovered relics. My desires…? Do we not all desire the pleasures of the flesh…” they spat.
“But she watches…”
“She watches…”
“Watches…”
Hiklal sat in silence for a moment, hanging their head, before lifting their hollow, blackened hues. They shake their head, “Nox, shift like the shadows, and transcend this realm. She Who Thirst is far to close behind…”
With a crack of the reigns, and a chordle horse scream, Nox burst into the nightly woodland with fervent abundance.
Hiklal screams into the night as their companion did and their hunt commenced…
***
Thero squints out into the creeping fog of the early morning hours of the verdant Avelorn. The lush forest was damp, and the haggard Asur veteran found himself rolling his shoulder stiffly as an old wound locked the appendage in place.
Then, that ghostly chordle bellowed through the forest realm once more…
Althair felt sweat drip down his brow as he swallowes a lump in his throat, and his hand tightening along his spear, “There it is again…” he glances to the weathered veteran. “It is like nothing I have ever heard before.”.
He pauses, stricken pale, “Have we placed the Handmaiden in danger?”
Thero waves the young spearmen off, “Stop hackin’, and do your damned job.”
The veteran furrows his brow as the thunder of hooves barreled toward the pair, and yet another banshee wail echoed through the fog. Thero, even in his condition, leapt back as the jet black horse sprinted past both guards.
He grins at the young man, “Horse got loose, ha--”
Abruptly, a bolt explodes into the man’s skull, and the arcane tip erupts forth, shoving the eye, and innards sloppily over Althair’s face and armor.
As the veteran’s body began to sink to the spongy ground, the young spearman's eyes wretched open as a tall figure lurched forward swiftly. The last thing Althair heard was the click of the handheld crossbow, before it struck him in the center of the forehead. Unlike the veteran, he fell straight backward in a clattering of plate.
Hiklal ceases at the veteran’s corpse, snorting amusedly, ‘Hacking indeed...’ they thought, then looked forward, ‘Then, she is here…’
Hiklal heard the thumping of hooves, and a rustling of the underbrush. Glancing over to their warhorse, he saw Nox dragging the young Asur into the bush with sharpened teeth, wishing to feed.
Hiklal shakes their head, “Not now Nox, come along.” they said hushly, quickly mounting, and began through the forest once more.
But this time, in silence…
***
Yvine’s jeweled emerald hues shimmer in the moonlight, glancing from the sacked temple of Isha, to the vicarious forest beyond. Her lips pressing into a thin line, as her knuckles turned white as she grasps her spear. The silence of the ghostly wails churns her stomach, and knew whatever it was, now hunted her.
“Is this a cruel joke of the Druchii, or another entity of itself? Everqueen preserve me…? Your realm will be protected, I swear it. I--”
A thunder of hooves had the Handmaiden pivoting about, locking her knees, and jolting her spear forward in preparation. A bulwark in the old kingdom of the High Elves. She would not falter this day.
Suddenly, after a corrupt fluctuation in the air, a bolt of Dhar screamed through the humid forest. The Handmaiden bound to the side in ease as the bolt crackles fiercely against the debris of the temple ruins.
A blade was drawn, and it scantalizes in the moonlight as a horrid horse and rider began to take form from the shadows. Gruesome, hungry yellow eyes, like a starving cold one, stare her down. From its sharpened teeth, spittle hung from the beast's mouth. It was swift, and of the blackest-black, and bound from the shadows as if it came from the shadow realm of the Pale Queen itself.
The rider was something else entirely…
It was druchii in all terms of the word, but different--changed.
Pallid, angular features, which twisted in haunted beauty. Gaunt, yet, fully elven. Hollow, yet, they thrived. Wisps of ghostly hair flow through the wind, and only adding to their fiendish appearance. Glossy, marble-black eyes peer at her, seemingly beyond this realm, and it was at that moment the Handmaiden made note of the extended crossbow.
Yvine’s ears twitched as she heard the trigger pulled twice in quick succession. She began to twist away from the rider, a bolt that screamed for her shoulder missed by a mere breadth. The second bolt wails, trailed by Dhar, and with a gruesome slick sound, lodges within her upper thigh.
The rider gallops past her, happening all within several seconds of a man’s perception.
Yvine cries out, and hisses as the Dhar simmers, corrupting her pure flesh. With a grimace, she takes the bolt from the exit, and yanks it the rest of the way through. She cries to Isha, and fell to a knee, spear pressing to the ground as her vision wavers. It was not a moment too soon, either, and the rider had returned.
A silver scimitar glimmers in what little moonlight shone between the woven web of branches above and the beast howled to the moon. In one fell swoop of the blade, Yvine twists free of its reach, and once she finishes her cycle, strikes forth with her spear, but the ghastly rider is too far gone. A rustle follows as the rider disappears into the underbrush, and is claimed by the darkness.
Yvine turns this way, and that way, as the reptilian roar escapes the horse's throat over, and over again. She feels her heart rate elevating, her breathing quickening, perspiration dampening her palms, and forehead, yet, the beast nor rider revealed themselves.
“Gone… maybe it’s g--” a seemingly more human wail took the words from her mouth--turning about far too late.
She is slammed by a searing ball of deranged magic, she could feel the dhar charring her flesh, corrupting what was once pristine. The entirety of her left arm, upper body, and face, are in ruins as the black fire continues incentigrates her silken blond hair. She registered this all before her body hit the ground--spinning across the wet grass, and ceasing several meters away.
A swell of numbness beats in her chest, as her stomach churns dementedly, and her head occulates verily. Her damaged hearing could not decipher where the rider was now, but she could feel the heavy hooves thumping through the ground. The beast circles, and out of her right eye, she saw the moon gleam across white flesh, and obsidian eyes.
Eyes wretch open and she gasps in the totality of consuming fear.
She turns to her side, retching, and her vision swam. The shadowy horse ceases, and as her vision wavers, silver-azure greaves clenches on the ground.
“She is very thirsty. Just sleep now, my dear Handmaiden. Sleep and forget all fear.”
The voice was feminine in nature, with a low undertone, that swells from the chest.
“Slaaneshi…” she murmurs.
Blackness…
* * *
She awakens sometime later, but how much time has passed, she was uncertain. A numbness crept in from her toes, wavering to her skull, so much so, the Handmaiden could barely open her eyes. When she did, her keen sense of sight was muted--blurred--and only revealed a mesh of green and brown of the forest.
After a few, panic stricken moments--a time where she could not scream, could not move, could not sense the world around her--she wiggles slightly, but barely moving. The Maiden of the forest realizes then her wrists and ankles were locked down to the mossy ground. Not chains, but rather magic induced shackles, and she groans for she could not bellow.
What happened? Where is she? /Who/ is she?
She was Yvine, Handmaiden of the Everqueen, here to investigate an infestation of Druchii within the heartland of Avelorn. Yvine tips her head to the side, eyes wretching wide as the decapitated heads of her guards lie next to her. Both in a state of cruel, curdling death. Deformation is the highest of horrors with their mouths set agap, yowling in eternal silence. The asur sucked in a breath, exhaling to scream, but only a breathy rasp is released. With a pounding heart and a numb body, her mind exhilarates--
‘Wait! Where is--,’ but before she could finish her thought, the ‘thing’ knelt over her, turning her face to gaze up at them.
Hiklal’s gaunt, pale as snow features are revealed, so beautiful and ever strange. They could tell the Handmaiden was practically captivated. Both in horror and seduction.. This caused pained brows to furrow, obsidian eyes narrow--this captivation causing irritation to Hiklal.
‘I am more than an object to gawk, she will know this,’ they thought.
The Warlock smiles crisp and dark, then snatches the Handmaiden’s head between both gauntleted hands--studied her numb emerald hues, then says, “You will sate Her desires--Her warpath to my soul. You will feed my ever growing hunger for more souls. For I wish not to shrink to a feeble husk--I wish for more for I am no ‘thing’. I am Hiklal, Master Warlock of the Kar Khadath.”
Then saying, with a thoughtful pause, “this forest is your undoing.”
Hiklal’s face contorts into a horrid, but beautiful visage. Mouth outstretching, eyes glaring, creasing lines at the jaw, cheeks and forehead, and what came next shakes the woman from her stupor.
A scream, a thousand screams in one, a yowl from the Shadow Realms that pleads from a sea of torment. It pleads, oh how it pleads, but it is too late, and an eternity of suffering in the vortex ocean of the domain of the Pale Queen awaits the Handmaiden.
She screams as she felt her body failing--a capsule for the soul, but it is peeling away, one layer at a time. Every little fiber, yet, she could not look away from Hiklal, until she was a shrivelled shell of her former self.
Still, silent--
Hiklal stands from the corpse, sucking in an empowering breath, smiling as the pain in their head lessens, their thoughts less muddy--felt fully theirself once again.
With this newly awoken synergy, Hiklal broke into a run, leapt atop the saddle of their corrupt stead, calling out, “Nox, ride as swift and silent as the shadows!”
With a single gruesome yodel, Nox rears his head, shaking the muscular form, then breaks into a punctual gallop.