[Raj'Ufnaj] We'll Say We're Frightened and We Want to go Home...

[Woe]

9th of Saun 719

"Trust me." He said, as he proceeded to drag him bodily into a tunnel, leading to a pit of flesh-rending maggots.

Their bodies were drawn ever under into the earth, and before a large centipede could swallow them whole, it's maw spreading wide with narrow, innumerable teeth, everything suddenly changed. Woe found himself floating, drifting in a vague realm, composed of all manner of strange sensations and feelings. In the midst of that moment spent in the Untold, Woe began wondering where he was, and how he could find his way back to safety.

As he wandered, hand in hand with Magpie, he felt himself colliding with a large mass, an inky bubble. As his body grazed the exterior of that mass, he was drawn along on a current. His way across the exterior was expedited, as the thoughts of being lost and wanting to go home intensified. Until at last, he reached a sinkhole in the surface or underside of that bubble, and then, fell through.

He felt himself falling then, through a mild night sky above, and a large expanse of water beneath. For a moment, Woe panicked, feeling the urgency to avoid that water at all costs. He didn't know how to swim!

Within seconds he made contact with the water, splashing into it and sinking below. His limbs struggled to find purchase, somewhere anywhere, but he just kept sinking. With every kick and swing of his arm, he managed to scramble a bit above the surface of the water, valiantly for air.

He spotted Magpie, or thought he did, his head well above water. "Help me, Magpie, I can't swim!"

It was then that Woe noticed, Magpie was standing, waist-deep in the water. And if Woe just settled down, and let his feet touch the floor of the shallows, he'd note that it was only three feets deep of water.

He rose sheepishly, breathing heavily from his struggles, and asked, "Where are we?"

[Llyr Llywelyn]

9 Saun, 719
followed from here.

Trust. What a concept for the mage to claim as he shoved Woe forward, deserted the small dwindling Etzori unit, and then followed into the dark abyss. An air current rushed up along and though he knew there was much to feel concerned over… he focused on the only thing that mattered: Crossing over to Emea.

He kept a grasp on Woe's hand, like he did with all who he escorted into the Veil, and not wanting to accidentally leave him behind. Together, they left Rharkos and Lisirra and her poisonous insects and the confusion of the deserted unit that died one by one by one with no seeming hope to return to the surface nor rejoin with the main army. Perhaps this way, he considered, they might find the Etzori force.

Llyr searched through the darkened threshold as he led them past the wild Untold toward the Veil. He looked at the gleams of light: his branded few. Some close, others far away. One of them was Kasoria, he knew. If he could only manage to lead their path in that direction…

…but he felt a yank on his arm. He realized a trill too late that Woe had gotten drawn in by something. Through the abstract waves of iridescent color, they fell through a membranous sky and Llyr shouted over the rushed din of a high-pitched noise, “Woe! Where are you going?! Stop!”

He couldn’t control it though. Whatever had latched onto Woe, grasped onto the both of them with such superior gravity, his wings couldn’t resist it. He could barely keep his hold on the human, let alone bring them back the way they came. Llyr swore as he felt their gloved hands slip apart, a mix of Vahanic and Common followed by a string of “no, no, no, no…”

It wasn't any use.

Woe had let go. Llyr had lost his hold. They flew in different directions immediately, as if pushed apart by a gust of wind. Llyr flipped around, narrowed his focus, and nearly expended his ether to catch his fall… but his wings fluttered. Instead of attempting to fight the force, he went along with it. He followed the current of the misted air.

The biqaj landed on his feet in the water with a slide. His bootheels dug into the sandy muck underneath. Llyr adjusted his perceptions and focused on his breath. He was still physical. He hadn’t separated between his forms at any point. He patted his hands over his torso as if to confirm this, then he heard splashes and Woe’s desperate pleas for help.

He breathed shallowly, still recovering from the profound fall, and stared while Woe flailed in the waist-deep water next to him. At least they hadn’t gotten completely separated… least he hoped it was Woe and not some mimic of some dastardly Emean creature in the form of Woe. He walked over and grabbed the human by the wrist, then forced him to his feet rather than saying anything.

Where are we?

Llyr looked around. He considered the sensations that went through his body. Lowly, he said, “Not where I intended us to go.”

He waded through the water, but there was no shore. Only more water… water as far as he could see… “This looks like how Kasoria described the Veil. But that wouldn’t make any sense. Why would we perceive it like him? And the ground is solid under out feet… I can feel this water, the sun, the... no, it’s not that. This is… We’re us, we’re here, not there… it’s like… the fall… like the slime. Falling into the slime, but this is water.”

“We’re somewhere we shouldn’t be,” he concluded. He looked at Woe with his eyes filled of ice blue glow. “We need to find a door to the Veil or a dreamscape as quick as we can. Are you familiar with Emea?”

Llyr paused and stared past the human’s shoulder. In the distance, he saw a silhouette on the otherwise flat horizon.

“Do you also see that?” asked the biqaj. The more he looked at it, the more it seemed to sharpen into an incredibly familiar shape…

...the galleon he’d lived part of his childhood aboard? He took a small step back and shook his head. The mage didn’t like this. He moved his hands about, waved in the air, then glided his palms against the water’s surface, and then dove his hands into the water. He searched desperately for a door to the veil by mere intuition alone. But he could feel nothing, find nothing, and he swore in a colorful string of Vahanic words. He slapped at a wave in the water.

A high-pitched whistle resounded through the domain of U'frek. The water around them picked up, waves lengthened and rippled around them, as the ship in the distance drew near in swift approach.

[Woe]

Date

"Well..." Woe, still catching his breath, wondered exactly where Magpie had intended them to go. How had they gotten here? He should have stayed behind with the rest of the spiders, or ditched the army. Nobody would've known. Nobody.

"Who's Kasoria? What?" Woe was in over his head, as usually happened when he jumped in belly first, which was fast becoming a habit. "Slime. There's. Supposed to be slime? Magpie..."

The Webspinner was tired of these misadventures. All the way, since leaving Rynmere, it was a constant tug from one catastrophe to another. From Augiery to Yaralon, and now to Etzos. Between all that time, he'd found himself marked by Lethroda. Becoming a Webspinner in earnest and harboring a couple of arcane parasites.

It'd been quite a year already, all told.

Do you also see that?

Woe turned around, to look at what he'd pointed out. Woe saw a large Galleon, the likes of which he'd not seen anywhere. He turned to glance at Magpie, "Do you know this ship?"

He blinked a few times at Magpie, and then turned back toward it. "I.. can't swim." He admitted. "Do you suppose they have any piers around here?"


Woe had spent at least a season at sea, but for all that time, didn't know the first thing about seafaring, swimming, or even navigation. He couldn't tell one star constellation from another, or tell what the difference between the fore and aft sections of a ship was. Well perhaps that last part was an exaggeration. "Of all the places to land. So this is Emea?"

[Llyr Llywelyn]

Far too concerned with where they were, and how to get to the Veil, Llyr ignored some of the questions and searched for a way but found nothing to grab onto, no ether to hook into, nothing… he looked out across the water and saw the ship that approached them.

Llyr pinched the bridge of his nose. They’d entered Emea because of him… they just didn’t end up where he’d planned.

“Yes, we’re in the dream world,” he informed the older man. “It’s a place I go sometimes… but not here.”

He stared at the ship that stopped beyond the dip in the water to deeper waters. The blond looked over at Woe, then back to the ship. His wings fluttered but to no use. He couldn’t get lift out of the water. Where were they… and why? He suspected figuring those questions out would be key to finding his way back to the Veil.

“Don’t trust your senses,” he told Woe in a quick run-down of Emean interaction. “What we see or meet or run into might not be real.”

He looked while waves rushed through the current of the water around them, as the Galleon ship moved closer. On deck, he could see figures moving about. Llyr said, “It’s the only thing I see around that might take us anywhere… and if you can’t swim… it can’t actually be that ship so…”

Llyr outstretched his arm, and waved with a shout, “Hello?! We’re lost, can you help us?”

As the Galleon turned on course, then stopped, he saw a dinghy be set down into the water with a person inside. They rowed toward the pair of men.

“Remember, keep your wits about you and we should try to not lose sight of each other. Without me, you might never leave this place at all,” warned Llyr. He kept his sight on the dinghy as it approached, and he saw a biqaj woman with honey blond hair that was up in curls and the finery of a well-to-do naval officer.

She looked between the two and then said, “Ahoy. Heard you were lost. Name’s Ihadia, jump on in and we’ll see if we can’t get you home.”

Llyr didn’t move though, not immediately. He stared, his breath short, and then looked at Woe. Focus, it’s not real. He got into the dinghy, and tried to ignore that it was his mother who sat across from them.

Ihadia waited for the two to settle, then started rowing back to the Galleon. She smiled, then asked, "How'd you come to be so lost?"

The young mage lowered his gaze. His halo flickered. He said nothing.

[Woe]

So how do we get out? Do we wake up? Being slightly apprehensive and more than a little wary of Magpie, Woe didn't give voice to the immediate question that popped into his head. Magpie looked annoyed enough to probably ditch him if it was within his power. Revelation after revelation of one power after the next made Woe more cautious around Magpie. He was an exceptional person and Woe was keenly aware of how out of his depth he was. Then again, perhaps that level of power rendered one such as Woe less significant than the ants that crawled over the dinghy that rowed over to meet them.

"Don't trust your senses, What we see or meet or run into might not be real." The webspinner nodded to the Dreamwalker, although he had no idea what he was to trust, if not his senses. His faculties hadn't exactly done him favors of late. Blundering from one disaster to another, Woe was a harbinger of bad fortune on legs. He'd do as Llyr directed, and keep it at that.

"W-what ship? It can't be wh..." Yet then Magpie was hailing the ship, calling for its aid.

Before long the dinghy arrived by them, where the woman, Ihadia, invited them to jump in. Woe didn't do anything yet, remembering Magpie's warning. He only entered the vessel after the dream walker, and at that point would let him do the talking.

Except, Magpie fell very silent as they settled in. She asked them a question, how they'd gotten lost. Woe first looked to Magpie, saying nothing. His quirked a brow when the mage lowered his gaze as if he was being chastised by his master or his mother.

Woe thought about whispering to him to ask what the matter was, but supposed it would be rude to ignore the lady who'd taken them in. "We came from a place far under the earth. This man guided us out of certain death but, as you say, now we're lost."

He gazed off into the aurora that was present at the horizon of this endless span of water. It was entirely beautiful, he'd not seen any place quite like it. Not it had much in the way of competition in his itinerary.

First Lowtown in Rynmere, to the dark terror of Augiery, to the livid chaos of Yaralon's landscape. And finally, to Etzos, the sand heap upon which an Immortal was rumored to have died. This place seemed quite nice in comparison.

She rowed the Dinghy right up to the Galleon, and underneath the lift that would bring them to the top deck. Slowly, they began to ascend. Woe stole another glance at Magpie, wondering what he might be thinking, and what had him so quiet when they got into the boat.

When the silence became unseemly, Woe spoke to her again, "Ihadia, thank you for your assistance... I'm Woe. This is..."

He let Magpie introduce himself, but waved an arm to give him the prompt.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

As Woe answered the question, Ihadia smiled and nodded. Her eyes changed from shades of blue to gold and then settled to amber in petals of color while she glanced between the two men. The blonde woman continued to row and she said, “Aha. Let’s see if we can help you back then?”

Llyr looked over at the woman again. He surveyed the attire. It wasn’t the sort of outfit he remembered his mother wearing, though his memories were limited to his young arcs as a child. She caught him looking and he quickly averted his gaze, going so far as to turn in the dinghy to look out at the ship they approached.

Woe introduced himself, then paused. Llyr glanced at the gestured prompt, the wave of the arm, but he simply turned and made the tiniest of noises that sounded nothing more than a grunt. When the dinghy reached the side of the railing, Llyr swiftly stood. He moved past Woe with a jostle against the human’s legs, then stepped onto the Galleon ship.

Ihadia slowly blinked, uncaring for the snub, and spoke to Woe, “I know who he is.”

The pale biqaj looked around, almost frantic in his survey for how quickly he turned his head back and forth. He saw people… people he knew, people who he grew up around, but also people he couldn’t recall. Llyr felt his breath grow shallow. He whispered, “Where are we…”

“Raj’Ufnaj,” answered Ihadia as she jumped over the railing, onto the deck. She waved to a few of the other sailors. “Let’s get you settled for the voyage, shall we? I’ll relay your arrival with the captain.” The woman walked away, disappearing past a door into the interior of the ship.

Llyr grabbed onto Woe’s wrist before the other man moved to follow either way. He pulled close and spoke in a hushed voice, “There’s something wrong here. This ship, that woman… it’s… from… my memories. Wherever we are, it must be feeding on my mind. I’ve never heard of this place before. It's Rakahi, do you know the language? It means Light of Water. This has to be… we must be in a world between worlds. The only person who ever spoke of such things was my...” he looked toward the way that Ihadia had gone. “...mother.”

“But those were bedside tales. Not real.” He shook his head, then paced along the railing. Llyr ignored a few calls from the sailors, who didn't crowd them as they were busy with tasks, but they did look over at the newcomers. He paused and stared at the nearby crow's nest. He whispered to himself, “Think...”

[Woe]

Date

"I know who he is." She said. At first, Woe thought to ask her his real name, but then he turned to see Llyr walk away, so sullen and distraught. He couldn't take advantage of the man who'd saved him from that pit in Rhakros.

"He's Mister Magpie. He saved my life." Woe said to Ihadia, nodding to her, and then getting out of the lifeboat and onto the main deck.

Raj'Ufnaj... Woe couldn't say he knew the name, but he knew the language, at least the sound of it. Many Biqaj lived in Rynmere, and he'd met a few in his time. Their language, a free-flowing sound that nevertheless was tempered with a bit of salt. Then was this, some sort of sub realm of Emea? Where had Magpie brought them?!

Before Woe could follow the woman, Magpie grabbed him by the wrist. The torturer frowned, and stopped where he was going, moving in to listen to his comrade. "I know of Rakahi... yes. Don't understand a word of it, though..."

Then Magpie went on to speak of the realm of Raj'Ufnaj, Light of Water. Woe was even more lost. "Are you saying we're in... Biqaj heaven?" The Rynmerish ex-slave quirked a brow at the man. "Then, that woman, she said she knows you?"

Woe listened as Magpie went on, speaking of bedside tales, and things that mothers whispered to their children. "If you'd told me a few arcs ago that dreams were more than just poorly digested porridge and eggs, and that one could travel above and beyond the realm to places untold of, then the mention of bedside tales as a disqualifying factor might've held more weight, Magpie. But look at where we are, what you've brought us to? Whatever this place is, whether it's an illusion feeding off your memories or your mind, or if it's in some measure real?"

Woe paused, not sure how to continue, or what to say to his comrade. "So you do know that woman then if this place is feeding off your memories? She looks familiar, now that you say that..."

"Is she your mother, then?" Woe asked, jealousy welling up in the recesses of his mind. He'd never known his own parents but felt the sudden rush of emptiness fill the void in his heart. Between the deprivation of meeting his parents, of setting things to right. Between Erastus' betrayal of them and robbing him of the opportunity to become a true Webspinner. Between Labrae's hand stopping him from landing a killing blow on his own heart, and Sintra's kiss of Lethroda...

But then, would Woe have gone through with it? Did he have the strength? Sometimes... he doubted his own resolve. "Should you go to her then? Or..."

[Llyr Llywelyn]

So, Woe couldn’t understand Rakahi, and he had no ties to the ship they were on, which meant to Llyr that this somehow had to be… it was because of himself that they were here. He felt a slight twang of guilt. Maybe something in the Rhakros tunnels had interfered with his usual ability to travel Emea.

“Biqaj heaven…” he repeated with a slightly bemused glance at the human. He shrugged. Maybe that was a suitable way to speak of it. He nodded and said, “Or more… whoever is pretending to be that woman claims to know me.”

He spoke a little further, then listened to Woe in turn. The blond crossed his arms and sighed. The torturer had a good point. He did look around at where they were… where he’d brought them…

…when had he forgotten how mystical Emea was?

Was it because he’d spent trials upon trials traversing through dreamscapes in the aftermath of being denied Emea for all of Ymiden? He’d had seasons now of knowing that the world existed far beyond what most people were aware. Llyr stared out at the sparkling ocean, placid and not unlike the very first dreamscape of his own… where Mister Kiwi had found him, all the way back in Ashan.

“It is… real enough,” he answered quietly. “This is not the same as the place of my mind. I would be able to control it if that were the case.”

“So you do know that woman then if this place is feeding off your memories? She looks familiar, now that you say that... Is she your mother, then?"

“Whatever it is, they have taken the form of my mother,” clarified Llyr in a simple way. He looked to where he’d seen the woman last before she’d past the captain’s door.

"Should you go to her then? Or..."

“No, we need not get caught up in the visions this place provides,” insisted the biqaj. “A trap might be sweet, but it is a trap none-the-less. We should focus on figuring our way out from here. I… ah, I know. Let us find the captain.”

Llyr left the spot where they’d huddled in confidence with each other. Stride long with his tall legs, he crossed the deck swiftly, and he reached the door that went to the captain’s quarters. It was not like the ship of his childhood, but rather reminded him of Graeslin’s ship…

Regardless, he grabbed onto the handle… and he opened it. A rush of salty air blew past him. Enough that his pale hair flurried, and his wings fluttered to keep himself in place. The taste was overwhelming. He coughed, but held the door open until a shadow crossed over the threshold. Llyr took a step back as a captain left the quarters, to make room for the other man.

Now, the captain wasn’t particularly tall… yet their presence seemed taller than the masts of the ship itself. Different forms seemed to meld over the figure, unable to remain still, as if it weren’t sure which memory to use. Among the visions, Llyr noticed Graeslin, but he also noticed his father in brief patchworks of skin and eyes, and then the captain he’d known in his childhood – the biqaj his mother had left his father for.

Compared to this chaotic figure, his mother now seemed incredibly real as she stood next to the captain. Llyr glanced between the two, then looked over his shoulder to see if Woe was still there or not. He returned his gaze forward and said, “We’d like to find our way back to the Veil, if there is a port that exists. I can pay the fare…”

“Yer coin is not needed,” answered the captain in a blend of varyingly pitched voices. “We sail where we go, and not anywhere else. Y’ don’t like it, youse can jump overboard.”

[Woe]

Yes, it must be sweet. Woe thought with some bitterness.

He never considered what he'd do if he had ever met his own mother and father. Perhaps there'd be an attempt at reconciliation, or perhaps he'd start a fight with them for selling him to Erastus. In the end, he didn't know if he had the heart to kill a perfect stranger. And what kind of sacrifice was it, to kill someone who meant nothing to you, until you found out who they were just a few moments before? Was that the kind of cheap sacrifice that pleased Sintra? He wondered sometimes...

Well, now Magpie was leading them toward the Captain's cabin. In they went, and there, Woe saw a figure that shifted and phased between several states, seeming surreal, just as Magpie had warned. This reinforced the idea that none of this was real.

Woe for his part saw parts of Erastus in the Captain, but it was evident that it was not him. No... it reminded him more of the dungeon keeper of Andaris, who'd kept Woe in his employ for a few seasons. He had an air of command that Erastus never really possessed. Erastus was more of one to trick you into doing what he wanted, rather than leading by inspiring loyalty.

The dungeon keeper pointed at Woe after he was done refusing Llyr's offer of coin. "Now hear this, take the Captain's Daughter boy and whip those lazy scrogs laying about below decks! Make yourself useful or I'll feed the sharks in our wake."

"I... Alright." Woe said, as the cat of nine tails was pressed into his hand. He knew the weapon, having used it in Andaris extensively. It was very painful and could open skin and pinch flesh. Not as messy as a scourge though, depending on how much force you exerted.

So, Woe shrugged at Llyr, and left the captain's cabin to go below decks.

There, he found about a score of men sleeping in their hammocks lazily. Woe inhaled through his nostrils, trying to acclimate himself to the smell of shit and body odor, to where olfactory fatigue would set in. Then he began cracking the air with the captain's daughter.

"Out of bed, lazy blighters! Captain's orders!"

"Oh shit!" One sailor shouted as he ducked below the strike of the cat.

"Cat's out of the bag! Let's hit the deck men!"

Woe realized then how much he missed snapping the whip against flesh. Maybe if he got out of this, he'd take up the art of torture again...

In the meantime, he used the captain's daughter to rouse the men and send them above to their tasks. A small curve of a smile crawled across Woe's lips as they ran and scrambled over each other to get out of their sleeping quarters.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

A sense of the alien struck Llyr and he felt so very out of place by the mere fact that he stood, physical and real, in front of the shifting energy that he tried to formulate a body to. It seemed to evade actual distinction, made up of composite parts of memories - and not all of which were his own, he recognized. The salty taste on his tongue strengthened. He heard a murmur of words, of instructions given, not to himself but to Woe.

He sighed when he saw the human shrug at him. Did he not just warn the other man that the entire thing was likely a trap? Yet there he went, following along with it anyway. Maybe that was the way to do it though. He wondered about this, wondered if maybe they were meant to navigate not only the murky waters of the Untold domain, but of the actual thoughts that formed the underlying realm itself. It was a curious enough wonder that he kept hold of the idea while he remained in the Captain quarters. He glanced at the scourge that Woe took with him, but said nothing of it.

Whatever the human got up to, below deck, Llyr did not follow and he did not know.

He remained, determined, in front of the shifting chaos of figures that was the captain. Llyr did not believe this to be any Immortal or anything of the like, though perhaps an Emean creature itself. The mage placed a hand on his hip, leaned slightly in a posture far more casual than the situation merited, and he glanced aside to where the creature who wore his mother's body was.

"I don't have time for any of this," he told the two of them. "Let me through the Veil or I will force a way and I don't think you, or I, or whoever it is that controls you will want that. Now, will they?"

Ihadia smiled at him, then shook her head, "Oh, son, can you not appreciate the moment? Haven't you wanted to see me again for so long and now I am here?"

Llyr's upper lip curled. He turned his gaze onto the Captain, "What is your interest in keeping us... me... here?"

"Son, come for a walk around the deck with me," insisted Ihadia as she walked over and took hold of his elbow.

The youthful biqaj's wings spread out. He shoved his mother away from the touch, a moment's frustration overtaking his attempt to remain calm. "Stop playing with me! Tell me, now, how it is I can return to the Veil or else..."

"We wish to see," answered the Captain as the forms shifted around in various faces and silhouettes. Voices blended and there was no attempt to pretend to be anything more than an amalgamation of recollections.

"See what?" inquired Llyr while he brushed his sleeve off from where Ihadia had touched him.

The shifting creature purred in echoed overlay, "See you change."

"Like the auroras," said Ihadia, though now the Captain seemed keen to ignore her as much as Llyr wanted to.

"Change..." the pale biqaj's eyes flashed in different colors, then he said, "I see... very well."

He turned away, walked out of the quarters and onto the deck. Around, he could see various constructs or biqajs or whoever they were, followers of U'frek or Emean creatures or otherwise, none of that mattered to him. Llyr found a cleared space in the center. His wings outstretched and he gathered his composure. Then he gradually undressed. From gloves, to leather armor, to boots; until he was left in nothing but his undershorts. The tall biqaj flexed his leans arms, twisted at the waist, and then... then magic rippled through and around him. Unrestrained in the Untold, his transformations went faster than any before and he morphed himself away - into the first totem he ever had, of his sister Kiara.