Chapter 99: 99
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The sun is setting into a grim shadow over the horizon by the time we make it back to the thick wall of brambles that marks our way out of the end; darkness is seeping into long inky claws over the tips of the trees, sucking the last of the warmth out of the air and bringing with it a chilled edge of deathly despair.
Only a cold blooded killer could find any sort of solace in this forest now.
Part of me wishes I left earlier, if only to avoid the depressing notion that I now have to trek back to the palace in complete and utter darkness. Of course, there is always the option of casting out my flames to illuminate a path, but at night time- the time of creatures who feel no pain and vampires who hunt their prey for just as much a sport as they do a necessity, that idea isn't exactly sitting well on my mind by the time we had to bid Kal goodbye.
"Call on me anytime you like," he says with a flourish of his black gloved hand as he leans on the side of a relatively sturdy tree, adding a sly wink in the direction of Ithuriel, seemingly over the temporary guilt at being caught so brazenly red handed earlier. I suppose I should expect so much from a dragon, although that doesn't stop me from feeling bad for the poor white haired angel. Perhaps I should make more of a dutiful point on my part to sunder Kal's advances- but then again, I think realistically to myself, kicking away a stone with the tip of my boot, Ithuriel is very capable of handling himself. I have no doubt if he wanted to he could send Kal flying, but the violent nature of the act renders it purely as a last resort, after all, Ithuriel (for the most part) rathers to take the arguably more effective approach of passive aggression.
Kal offers up a sly wiggle of his eyebrows as he glances between us.
Ithuriel, for all his dignity is worth, ignores Kal, turning himself instead to me, and urgent look in his eyes as if to say:
'Can we go now?'
I soothe Ithuriel with a quick rub on the top of his head, craning my neck towards Kal as I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, peering at him through the inky blackness that has begun to sway at the edges of my vision.
"And how might we do that? Shout 'Kal' and you will just magically appear for us?" I ask, but smile anyway at the stupidity of the thought. To my surprise, Kal adopts a serious look, nodding to himself as if the idea had any merit to it at all, then offers me a light shrug in answer.
"You know, I have never tried that, but it might work. Give it a go, you will soon find out," he suggests, starting a little as a horn blows out from deep within the end with startling clarity, then bows a lowly, bending over at the waist. "Alas, Fangorn calls. This is where I leave you, my Queen, my knight,"
I wave him off with a dismissive flick of my hand, eager to be gone from the dark and back into the comforting warmth of the fire back in our room, to curl up on the fluffy furs of the bed and sleep for a week. It certainly seems like a nice ideal.
"Skip the formalities, you sound like the Councillors," I mutter, crinkling my nose a little in an unintentional expression of disgust, causing Ithuriel to grunt in bitter acknowledgement. Kal nods his head understandingly.
"Noted. Also," he adds, just as we are turning to leave, stretching out a hand as though grasping to keep us there, to pull hold of the invisible threads attached to us and bid us stay a second longer to linger under the shadows of the empty forest that shifts and shivers under the ghostly breath of the wind. I tap my foot with an impatient nervous energy. The devouring blackness of twilight is not particularly a time I like to be kept waiting in.
"If you see me in the Palace, you must pretend not to know me. The Prince knows me very well, if he realises we have been conversing, that you have visited Fangorn…" he shakes his head sadly. "I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue."
I nod my response, echoing his words:
"Noted,"
And with that, Ithuriel and I set our backs to the grim claws of the end and leave Kal alone- shifting under the dark light of the half moon like a ghost peeking in and out of the shadows, yearning to to reach out and join whatever little scraps of life they have left. And there he stays, right until the brambles have closed their talons around us and sucked us into the void of darkness, swept away into the night.
***
I should have realised something was wrong the moment I stepped into the dead silence of the forest. I should have realised, should have understood, that in that moment, that small fraction of a second when the deathly noiselessness of our surroundings, my ears straining against the emptiness of the air, took hold of my senses, that something was so incredibly wrong.
"Ithuriel," I whisper from the side of my mouth, glancing down at the small woodfox who has fallen into a slow and hesitant trot, as if testing the very foundations of his surroundings before laying a single foot down, wary of what may lay beneath it. My voice lowers impossibly more.
"Where are all the creatures."
Ithuriel remains silent, as if quite unable to answer the question himself. For indeed, the forest is empty, devoid of life and the beating hearts of animals that scurry around in the undergrowth, foraging for morsels of food or plump berries half bursting from a season of ripening in the thorny blackberry bushes. Not a rustle, nor a whisper, or a breath of wind rises over the tips of the trees, the atmosphere stagnant, dead as a carcass rotting under the summer sun. It is as if the trees themselves were holding their breath.
"Ithuriel I-"
And with those few syllables uttered from my lips, the whole forest explodes.
In a matter of seconds my feet are ripped off the ground and my back clashes against something gnarled and hard, my breath coming out in a ragged gasp as air is temporarily expelled from my lungs. A high pitched scream, not entirely human, echoes around the forest and I am suddenly aware that I can no longer see Ithuriel against the depths of the impenetrable gloom. Yet amidst the popping of my ears and the sparks that fly in a smattered array across my eyes, I find myself barely seeing anything at all, my mind reeling, desperately searching for an answer as to what happened.
I groan as my back is pressed agonisingly further against the splintered wood of an oak.
That very answer presents itself to me with a firm hand wrapped around my throat and a cruel grating voice in my ear. Red eyes emerge from the gloom.
"Well well, we have been looking for you, you sly little bitch,"
I choke against the hand pressing against my throat, gasping for air, my throat suddenly feeling entirely brittle in the stone hands of the monster who wavers before me.
No... No... Not him, not now...
My eyes widen, bulging in their sockets. I recognise this monster. I recognise him all to well. Against the murky shadows and the blanket of darkness provided by the dense foliage that is strewn above our heads, I pick out a tall slender frame and a shock of neatly combed black hair, a pair of burning red eyes deep set into his slender face, narrowed to the point of judgment. It is a look I have so ingrained into me that it's almost impossible to forget.
"H- hrrk- hello Andrais," I choke out in a series of stuttering coughs, my lips spreading into a weak smile against the pain- an act which only causes his fist to close impossibly tighter around my neck. "You know last time I heard you were having your tongue cut out, how did that go for you?"
Andrais lowers me a little and allows his face to draw closer to mine, my back grating against the tree in such a way that it would likely leave at least several splinters embedded deep into my skin. His face is in such close proximity to mine that I can smell the strong pungency of fresh blood playing on his breath, catch flickers of redness staining the otherwise pearly whites of his teeth as he spits:
"No better thanks to you, you bitch. I had to wait for three days for my tongue to grow back."
Somewhere across from me, a whine sounds out across the forest. Desperately I peer out into the darkness, searching to the best of my ability where exactly the source of the sound is coming from, panic rising in my throat, welling up against my insides.
Why did this have to happen now?
My eyes come to settle on a hazy white form on the ground some few meters off from where I am held aloft, its fluffy tail bristled, antennae glowing with a pulsating spark that does little to penetrate the thick void of darkness. Two vampires, distinctly female, busty and wearing very little (save a few scraps of thin black leathers that just about cover the majority of their more sensitive areas) stand surrounding the white fox, clutching their heads, mouths agape in a silent scream, frozen in place by some immovable force. By the looks of things, Ithuriel is using his powers to hold them, inducing some telepathy agony in their minds which withholds them from taking another step towards him. But by the pained look on Ithuriel's face, and the periodic whimpers that spike the air with their deathless sorrow, it doesn't appear to look like Ithuriel can hold the two female vampires for long.
Perhaps a little boldly for someone who has their neck encased by the stony hands of a vampire, I stare Andrais down with a cold, penetrating look.
"So, are you here to kill me, Andrais?"
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The sun is setting into a grim shadow over the horizon by the time we make it back to the thick wall of brambles that marks our way out of the end; darkness is seeping into long inky claws over the tips of the trees, sucking the last of the warmth out of the air and bringing with it a chilled edge of deathly despair.
Only a cold blooded killer could find any sort of solace in this forest now.
Part of me wishes I left earlier, if only to avoid the depressing notion that I now have to trek back to the palace in complete and utter darkness. Of course, there is always the option of casting out my flames to illuminate a path, but at night time- the time of creatures who feel no pain and vampires who hunt their prey for just as much a sport as they do a necessity, that idea isn't exactly sitting well on my mind by the time we had to bid Kal goodbye.
"Call on me anytime you like," he says with a flourish of his black gloved hand as he leans on the side of a relatively sturdy tree, adding a sly wink in the direction of Ithuriel, seemingly over the temporary guilt at being caught so brazenly red handed earlier. I suppose I should expect so much from a dragon, although that doesn't stop me from feeling bad for the poor white haired angel. Perhaps I should make more of a dutiful point on my part to sunder Kal's advances- but then again, I think realistically to myself, kicking away a stone with the tip of my boot, Ithuriel is very capable of handling himself. I have no doubt if he wanted to he could send Kal flying, but the violent nature of the act renders it purely as a last resort, after all, Ithuriel (for the most part) rathers to take the arguably more effective approach of passive aggression.
Kal offers up a sly wiggle of his eyebrows as he glances between us.
Ithuriel, for all his dignity is worth, ignores Kal, turning himself instead to me, and urgent look in his eyes as if to say:
'Can we go now?'
I soothe Ithuriel with a quick rub on the top of his head, craning my neck towards Kal as I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, peering at him through the inky blackness that has begun to sway at the edges of my vision.
"And how might we do that? Shout 'Kal' and you will just magically appear for us?" I ask, but smile anyway at the stupidity of the thought. To my surprise, Kal adopts a serious look, nodding to himself as if the idea had any merit to it at all, then offers me a light shrug in answer.
"You know, I have never tried that, but it might work. Give it a go, you will soon find out," he suggests, starting a little as a horn blows out from deep within the end with startling clarity, then bows a lowly, bending over at the waist. "Alas, Fangorn calls. This is where I leave you, my Queen, my knight,"
I wave him off with a dismissive flick of my hand, eager to be gone from the dark and back into the comforting warmth of the fire back in our room, to curl up on the fluffy furs of the bed and sleep for a week. It certainly seems like a nice ideal.
"Skip the formalities, you sound like the Councillors," I mutter, crinkling my nose a little in an unintentional expression of disgust, causing Ithuriel to grunt in bitter acknowledgement. Kal nods his head understandingly.
"Noted. Also," he adds, just as we are turning to leave, stretching out a hand as though grasping to keep us there, to pull hold of the invisible threads attached to us and bid us stay a second longer to linger under the shadows of the empty forest that shifts and shivers under the ghostly breath of the wind. I tap my foot with an impatient nervous energy. The devouring blackness of twilight is not particularly a time I like to be kept waiting in.
"If you see me in the Palace, you must pretend not to know me. The Prince knows me very well, if he realises we have been conversing, that you have visited Fangorn…" he shakes his head sadly. "I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue."
I nod my response, echoing his words:
"Noted,"
And with that, Ithuriel and I set our backs to the grim claws of the end and leave Kal alone- shifting under the dark light of the half moon like a ghost peeking in and out of the shadows, yearning to to reach out and join whatever little scraps of life they have left. And there he stays, right until the brambles have closed their talons around us and sucked us into the void of darkness, swept away into the night.
***
I should have realised something was wrong the moment I stepped into the dead silence of the forest. I should have realised, should have understood, that in that moment, that small fraction of a second when the deathly noiselessness of our surroundings, my ears straining against the emptiness of the air, took hold of my senses, that something was so incredibly wrong.
"Ithuriel," I whisper from the side of my mouth, glancing down at the small woodfox who has fallen into a slow and hesitant trot, as if testing the very foundations of his surroundings before laying a single foot down, wary of what may lay beneath it. My voice lowers impossibly more.
"Where are all the creatures."
Ithuriel remains silent, as if quite unable to answer the question himself. For indeed, the forest is empty, devoid of life and the beating hearts of animals that scurry around in the undergrowth, foraging for morsels of food or plump berries half bursting from a season of ripening in the thorny blackberry bushes. Not a rustle, nor a whisper, or a breath of wind rises over the tips of the trees, the atmosphere stagnant, dead as a carcass rotting under the summer sun. It is as if the trees themselves were holding their breath.
"Ithuriel I-"
And with those few syllables uttered from my lips, the whole forest explodes.
In a matter of seconds my feet are ripped off the ground and my back clashes against something gnarled and hard, my breath coming out in a ragged gasp as air is temporarily expelled from my lungs. A high pitched scream, not entirely human, echoes around the forest and I am suddenly aware that I can no longer see Ithuriel against the depths of the impenetrable gloom. Yet amidst the popping of my ears and the sparks that fly in a smattered array across my eyes, I find myself barely seeing anything at all, my mind reeling, desperately searching for an answer as to what happened.
I groan as my back is pressed agonisingly further against the splintered wood of an oak.
That very answer presents itself to me with a firm hand wrapped around my throat and a cruel grating voice in my ear. Red eyes emerge from the gloom.
"Well well, we have been looking for you, you sly little bitch,"
I choke against the hand pressing against my throat, gasping for air, my throat suddenly feeling entirely brittle in the stone hands of the monster who wavers before me.
No... No... Not him, not now...
My eyes widen, bulging in their sockets. I recognise this monster. I recognise him all to well. Against the murky shadows and the blanket of darkness provided by the dense foliage that is strewn above our heads, I pick out a tall slender frame and a shock of neatly combed black hair, a pair of burning red eyes deep set into his slender face, narrowed to the point of judgment. It is a look I have so ingrained into me that it's almost impossible to forget.
"H- hrrk- hello Andrais," I choke out in a series of stuttering coughs, my lips spreading into a weak smile against the pain- an act which only causes his fist to close impossibly tighter around my neck. "You know last time I heard you were having your tongue cut out, how did that go for you?"
Andrais lowers me a little and allows his face to draw closer to mine, my back grating against the tree in such a way that it would likely leave at least several splinters embedded deep into my skin. His face is in such close proximity to mine that I can smell the strong pungency of fresh blood playing on his breath, catch flickers of redness staining the otherwise pearly whites of his teeth as he spits:
"No better thanks to you, you bitch. I had to wait for three days for my tongue to grow back."
Somewhere across from me, a whine sounds out across the forest. Desperately I peer out into the darkness, searching to the best of my ability where exactly the source of the sound is coming from, panic rising in my throat, welling up against my insides.
Why did this have to happen now?
My eyes come to settle on a hazy white form on the ground some few meters off from where I am held aloft, its fluffy tail bristled, antennae glowing with a pulsating spark that does little to penetrate the thick void of darkness. Two vampires, distinctly female, busty and wearing very little (save a few scraps of thin black leathers that just about cover the majority of their more sensitive areas) stand surrounding the white fox, clutching their heads, mouths agape in a silent scream, frozen in place by some immovable force. By the looks of things, Ithuriel is using his powers to hold them, inducing some telepathy agony in their minds which withholds them from taking another step towards him. But by the pained look on Ithuriel's face, and the periodic whimpers that spike the air with their deathless sorrow, it doesn't appear to look like Ithuriel can hold the two female vampires for long.
Perhaps a little boldly for someone who has their neck encased by the stony hands of a vampire, I stare Andrais down with a cold, penetrating look.
"So, are you here to kill me, Andrais?"
The sun is setting into a grim shadow over the horizon by the time we make it back to the thick wall of brambles that marks our way out of the end; darkness is seeping into long inky claws over the tips of the trees, sucking the last of the warmth out of the air and bringing with it a chilled edge of deathly despair.Only a cold blooded killer could find any sort of solace in this forest now. Part of me wishes I left earlier, if only to avoid the depressing notion that I now have to trek back to the palace in complete and utter darkness. Of course, there is always the option of casting out my flames to illuminate a path, but at night time- the time of creatures who feel no pain and vampires who hunt their prey for just as much a sport as they do a necessity, that idea isn't exactly sitting well on my mind by the time we had to bid Kal goodbye. "Call on me anytime you like," he says with a flourish of his black gloved hand as he leans on the side of a relatively sturdy tree, adding a sly wink in the direction of Ithuriel, seemingly over the temporary guilt at being caught so brazenly red handed earlier. I suppose I should expect so much from a dragon, although that doesn't stop me from feeling bad for the poor white haired angel. Perhaps I should make more of a dutiful point on my part to sunder Kal's advances- but then again, I think realistically to myself, kicking away a stone with the tip of my boot, Ithuriel is very capable of handling himself. I have no doubt if he wanted to he could send Kal flying, but the violent nature of the act renders it purely as a last resort, after all, Ithuriel for the most part rathers to take the arguably more effective approach of passive aggression. Kal offers up a sly wiggle of his eyebrows as he glances between us.Ithuriel, for all his dignity is worth, ignores Kal, turning himself instead to me, and urgent look in his eyes as if to say:'Can we go now?'I soothe Ithuriel with a quick rub on the top of his head, craning my neck towards Kal as I raise a questioning eyebrow at him, peering at him through the inky blackness that has begun to sway at the edges of my vision."And how might we do that? Shout 'Kal' and you will just magically appear for us?" I ask, but smile anyway at the stupidity of the thought. To my surprise, Kal adopts a serious look, nodding to himself as if the idea had any merit to it at all, then offers me a light shrug in answer."You know, I have never tried that, but it might work. Give it a go, you will soon find out," he suggests, starting a little as a horn blows out from deep within the end with startling clarity, then bows a lowly, bending over at the waist. "Alas, Fangorn calls. This is where I leave you, my Queen, my knight," I wave him off with a dismissive flick of my hand, eager to be gone from the dark and back into the comforting warmth of the fire back in our room, to curl up on the fluffy furs of the bed and sleep for a week. It certainly seems like a nice ideal."Skip the formalities, you sound like the Councillors," I mutter, crinkling my nose a little in an unintentional expression of disgust, causing Ithuriel to grunt in bitter acknowledgement. Kal nods his head understandingly. "Noted. Also," he adds, just as we are turning to leave, stretching out a hand as though grasping to keep us there, to pull hold of the invisible threads attached to us and bid us stay a second longer to linger under the shadows of the empty forest that shifts and shivers under the ghostly breath of the wind. I tap my foot with an impatient nervous energy. The devouring blackness of twilight is not particularly a time I like to be kept waiting in."If you see me in the Palace, you must pretend not to know me. The Prince knows me very well, if he realises we have been conversing, that you have visited Fangorn" he shakes his head sadly. "I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue."I nod my response, echoing his words:"Noted,"And with that, Ithuriel and I set our backs to the grim claws of the end and leave Kal alone- shifting under the dark light of the half moon like a ghost peeking in and out of the shadows, yearning to to reach out and join whatever little scraps of life they have left. And there he stays, right until the brambles have closed their talons around us and sucked us into the void of darkness, swept away into the night. ***I should have realised something was wrong the moment I stepped into the dead silence of the forest. I should have realised, should have understood, that in that moment, that small fraction of a second when the deathly noiselessness of our surroundings, my ears straining against the emptiness of the air, took hold of my senses, that something was so incredibly wrong. "Ithuriel," I whisper from the side of my mouth, glancing down at the small woodfox who has fallen into a slow and hesitant trot, as if testing the very foundations of his surroundings before laying a single foot down, wary of what may lay beneath it. My voice lowers impossibly more."Where are all the creatures."Ithuriel remains silent, as if quite unable to answer the question himself. For indeed, the forest is empty, devoid of life and the beating hearts of animals that scurry around in the undergrowth, foraging for morsels of food or plump berries half bursting from a season of ripening in the thorny blackberry bushes. Not a rustle, nor a whisper, or a breath of wind rises over the tips of the trees, the atmosphere stagnant, dead as a carcass rotting under the summer sun. It is as if the trees themselves were holding their breath. "Ithuriel I-"And with those few syllables uttered from my lips, the whole forest explodes. In a matter of seconds my feet are ripped off the ground and my back clashes against something gnarled and hard, my breath coming out in a ragged gasp as air is temporarily expelled from my lungs. A high pitched scream, not entirely human, echoes around the forest and I am suddenly aware that I can no longer see Ithuriel against the depths of the impenetrable gloom. Yet amidst the popping of my ears and the sparks that fly in a smattered array across my eyes, I find myself barely seeing anything at all, my mind reeling, desperately searching for an answer as to what happened.I groan as my back is pressed agonisingly further against the splintered wood of an oak.That very answer presents itself to me with a firm hand wrapped around my throat and a cruel grating voice in my ear. Red eyes emerge from the gloom."Well well, we have been looking for you, you sly little bitch," I choke against the hand pressing against my throat, gasping for air, my throat suddenly feeling entirely brittle in the stone hands of the monster who wavers before me. No... No... Not him, not now...My eyes widen, bulging in their sockets. I recognise this monster. I recognise him all to well. Against the murky shadows and the blanket of darkness provided by the dense foliage that is strewn above our heads, I pick out a tall slender frame and a shock of neatly combed black hair, a pair of burning red eyes deep set into his slender face, narrowed to the point of judgment. It is a look I have so ingrained into me that it's almost impossible to forget."H- hrrk- hello Andrais," I choke out in a series of stuttering coughs, my lips spreading into a weak smile against the pain- an act which only causes his fist to close impossibly tighter around my neck. "You know last time I heard you were having your tongue cut out, how did that go for you?"Andrais lowers me a little and allows his face to draw closer to mine, my back grating against the tree in such a way that it would likely leave at least several splinters embedded deep into my skin. His face is in such close proximity to mine that I can smell the strong pungency of fresh blood playing on his breath, catch flickers of redness staining the otherwise pearly whites of his teeth as he spits:"No better thanks to you, you bitch. I had to wait for three days for my tongue to grow back."Somewhere across from me, a whine sounds out across the forest. Desperately I peer out into the darkness, searching to the best of my ability where exactly the source of the sound is coming from, panic rising in my throat, welling up against my insides.Why did this have to happen now?My eyes come to settle on a hazy white form on the ground some few meters off from where I am held aloft, its fluffy tail bristled, antennae glowing with a pulsating spark that does little to penetrate the thick void of darkness. Two vampires, distinctly female, busty and wearing very little save a few scraps of thin black leathers that just about cover the majority of their more sensitive areas stand surrounding the white fox, clutching their heads, mouths agape in a silent scream, frozen in place by some immovable force. By the looks of things, Ithuriel is using his powers to hold them, inducing some telepathy agony in their minds which withholds them from taking another step towards him. But by the pained look on Ithuriel's face, and the periodic whimpers that spike the air with their deathless sorrow, it doesn't appear to look like Ithuriel can hold the two female vampires for long. Perhaps a little boldly for someone who has their neck encased by the stony hands of a vampire, I stare Andrais down with a cold, penetrating look."So, are you here to kill me, Andrais?"
