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Draysin -> RE: =EC 2015= Fountain Arena (10/8/2015 0:28:27)
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The spire had stopped, the contestants had left, and the arena was silent. Locke stepped through the archway and onto the cold floor. His claws clicked as the dragged along the floor, leaving small scratch marks on the floor. The cloaked figure made it’s way through the small piles of slush, down the steps towards the spire and the sleeping form of Ravinia. He looked down at his old friend. Then, slowly, tentatively, tendrils of smoke poured out from under his cloak. The smoke pooled onto the floor, raced down steps around the piles of slush and ice then carried Ravinia off of the floor propping her legs up and draping her across Locke’s back. He then left the arena through the same door he entered, the smoke racing to catch up with him.
Locke set Ravinia down on his bed, then set about making a crutch for her legs and a cast for her arm. Ravinia’s eyelids fluttered and Locke quickly snapped into place, and perched on foot of the table. Wiping the sweat from his feathered brow, he tried to remember how he acted around Ravinia last. All to superior, and much to ungrateful for what she had don for him. Taking an austere look, he braced himself as Ravinia weezed back to life. Blinking from under heavy eyelids, first with a moan, and then with a grunt Ravinia tried desperately to get up.
“What, .... where am I. Ugh, I can’t move my legs!” She winced.
“They were broken. By a monkey”
“What? Who is that? Who are you?” Ravinia jumped back, hitting her head on the wall, while she blinked, trying to see the figure past the light. “Locke?”
“Indeed.” Locke hopped off of the bed post and on to the floor by the bed. Now out of the light, Ravinia could see him in full detail. His avian body stood upon two spindly legs, long from years of walking, while others flew. His body curved into a disfigured arch, topped by a grotesque face, eyes bulging, and beak tiny. He wore a leather tunic with a oddly familiar amulet draped around his neck. He was an Ori, but not as one should be. These disfigured features now exploded in indignant rage. “What were you thinking?! The Elemental Championships? People die there!” He was gesticulating wildly now. “We did not invest so much for you to just - just -” Locke stopped, realizing what he was saying.
“What? Who invested what in me?” Ravinia questioned.
“Never mind that!” He waved away the question. “You’ll stay with me, just until you're ready, and in return, you’ll help run the stand, and hone your skills. Now get some rest, you’ve had a long day.” He rushed from the room, calling from down the stairs. “I’ll just.. um.. go grab something!”
Ravinia hoisted herself out of bed, and inspected Locke’s work. He’d done a good job with the splint, but the work on the cast was rushed, tied up with a patchwork cloth. Locke’s cloak, draped over the foot of the bed caught her eye. A large black imposing object, with a single eye on the back, the symbol of the deity of balance, Maysha. She found herself asking herself the same thing she had asked of everybody, since she came to Lore, and even before that: Can I trust them? Then, a new question popped into her head, one she had not thought since her first days under Reishi; Why does he trust me?
Locke picked through the piles of nicknacks and rubbish, piled high against the wall of the foyer. Somehow, Locke could never get rid of anything, not without a price. Tired of using one talon, to pick up one piece of junk at a time, he stepped back and opened his shriveled wings wide. Spinnerets of black smoke shot out from under each feather, and began to coalesce into a tangible form. “No Ori could ever master the DeathWind as I have.” Locke gloated. The smoke formed muscles and sinew, making a rudimentary hand, with each finger connected to him by a line of formless smoke. With a few deft movements, the hand picked up a massive amount of the ridiculous trinkets, and threw it to the other side of the room. Locke continued this, the hand moving with a dexterity, and vigor, that no one could ever manage, even if the hand was their own. Each finger moved independently, Locke finally found what he was looking for; a chair, wooden and affixed with wheels, and a curved blade, wickedly sharp.
Ravinia was jolted from her ponderment, by a loud thumping, coming from downstairs. Alerted to possible danger, Ravinia trying to get into an upright position, hit her head on the bed post. Now a large beastlike construct, came up the stairs, walking upon five leg like appendages, made purely from smoke. It beckoned to Ravinia with an it's back to the ground, legs splayed beckoningly. Ravinia grabbed her Bagh-naka, and Locke’s cloak, then dropped of off the bed and into the waiting palm of the hand, which she had now definitely decided it was. The hand then fell back down the stairs, transporting Ravinia at Locke’s feet. He wordlessly showed her the chair, and Ravinia solemnly hoisted herself into it. She knew one thing; she would not be leaving this chair for a long time.
Locke broke the silence that hung through the air. “It’s only temporary.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
Locke nodded silently. They fell into silence again. Ravinia clutched Locke’s cloak close to her chest.
“S-sometimes, I feel like I should have stayed with him. R-Reishi, I mean.” She looked up at Locke’s face. “But here, I know nothing.” A single tear streamed down her face. “My life was spices and work and pain, then it was luxury, and jewels, and-and ...him.” At that she broke into uncontrollable sobs, tears pouring from her face and staining the fabric eye with dewy droplets. “Now I’m stuck here, on this miserable planet, and I don’t know anything. I should never have left Reishi.”
Locke couldn’t help it. He broke character, and collapsed, folding his deformed wings around her body. “Don’t say that, don’t say that.” He muttered over and over again. “If you hadn’t left him, I would still be ...there with ...them. And I would rot until my beak turned black, and my feathers faded, and my eyes clouded, and I would still be uglier than the oldest Ori in Satru’s court.” Locke stood up and handed the sword to her. “Kaa S’ satta forged, it had a twin once. Must’ve lost its way. I thought it could find it again with you.” A single tear rolled down Locke’s beak and fell to the floor. Ravinia fell silent, looking up from the blade at this spectacle.
“Locke...”
“Ravinia, you saved my life. The least I can do is save your’s.”
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