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Sylphe -> RE: =EC 2022= Factory Arena (8/7/2022 19:22:46)
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The first star burned past the horizon, setting the icy sea on fire.
The second star crashed against a singing monolith, freeing the winds to wail.
So many voices cried out in dread as the ground tore open, mountains collapsing as if they were nothing but glass.
The third star silenced them all.
Ribali’s chest lit in cold fire before suddenly going quiet. She felt heavy, heavier than her stone scales ever have. She should have taken shelter against the shards. She knew what was coming. To cover her head at least, so scratched and bitten that her own blood stained her fangs before anyone else’s could.
She did not deserve, nor want that mercy.
In spite of the animal instincts screaming to take cover, to survive her own calamities, to hide in a burrow, she reached out against the marble’s last dying call. It seared past her hands, shards digging and cutting and stabbing into her skin. And yet, all she could think about was that she got to see them again.
The cutting cliffs that tore through her skin, the glass dust that dug into exposed flesh as the winds she gave them. The cliffs she carved and the sea waves she curled herself coming back to her, molten into glass. Through the blinding pain, she held a shaking smile even as her mind blinked in and out.
It was over. She didn’t know when she fell. But through all of the sharpness, her palms burned with one feeling. Among cliffs and mountains, she felt the smooth stones she never carved - did the small ones of black glass make them?
She shrieked, tendrils flaring in a frenzy, forehead resting in the dust. The darkness had lifted, the clicking beast was gone. Somewhere, her Flute dropped to the ground with a broken note.
The earth erupted, shattering as if their cliffs and seas and spirits and forests of reed were nothing but glass. God's cry deafened their ears to their planet's deathly cry, defied them to hear her final bellows.
For a Tamalan, breath is soul.
For a Tamalan, voice is body.
For a Tamalan, a song is the heart.
It is a tragedy for one to leave without having had their life's song heard.
Your purpose wasn’t creation, hunter. Mother’s voice rang in her mind. She wondered if it was once meant to comfort, and it was only the years of isolation and spite that made it drip with venom. Ribali’s hands ran through the dust, gentle to her skin like sand. Too gentle. Too kind. She snapped at the memory, holding the sand to her chest.
Their purpose wasn’t destruction! Their purpose wasn’t death!
But I am merciful, memory dredged up another voice. I’ll leave you a wisp of Light, why don’t you create yourself insects? That way, you won’t ever be lonely.
Something in her broke as she remembered her answer back then. She brushed her fingers past the blank smoothness of her remaining marbles. The jungle’s cry. The desert’s fury.
Then I shall create insect sized people and anthill sized worlds.
Ribali shook and seethed. Her breath was heavy, her claws digging into her stone palms, their tips dulling and cracking before she released them. The rivers of warmth between her stone armor brimmed with light, waking back to life. The false her was gone. They were gone if they knew what was good for them. And yet it was her luck that the memories the nightmare whipped up liked to rust the least, staying bright and painful even as anything else dimmed. She would not forgive the one that forced her to destroy.
From the resounding, heavy slam of a staff, they would not be forgiving her either. Ribali’s head sharply turned towards the one foolish to draw her attention. Did they think they could take her now that she was weak, after what they’d released?
Ribali swiped her Flute towards her with her tail. There was no blood on it from the monster she fought. Yet.
”I am Alderbaran. I am the Dreamer. My nightmare ends here!”
She forced herself into a stand even as every movement stung. With anger and grief welling in her heart, she turned towards the Dancer turned Dreamer, felt them take off in a jump. Her tendrils twitched, sensing warmth, no, heat coming from the fighter. Their heart must have been as burning as hers.
Good.
At the edge of her senses she heard another one racing towards them. Though her steps were heavier than before and rang atop the copper floor like a bell out of tune, Ribali focused elsewhere. She listened for the still air to break, for the staff that tore through it with a whistle, loud and closer, and closer still -
There.
Ribali turned her head. The staff bit into obsidian with vengeful force and a shattering ring. It sent deafening ripples through her skull, cracking glass, cracking bone. It forced her to step back under the blow. Her silence broke into a snarl as she pushed back against the staff and the pounding pain in her head. Blank, eyeless face glared into theirs.
“I am Riba..li. I will… not be lost.. to the dark.”
Her muscles strained as she threw the staff off with a buckle, and pushed forward. Her claws screeched against the metal floor digging for balance as she made a weary step forward. They were hopelessly far, too far for her claw or Flute to reach.
Stardust glittered in the Flutist’s suntouched palm. Light coalesced into a Flute of glass as long as a javelin.
Ribali lifted her head. Even after years spent fighting claw and horn, her body remembered the motion. With arm tipped back she sent the Flute sailing towards the Dreamer in an off-practice, yet powerful throw. She would not lose her target, not through the itch and burn. This prey, this hunter, dreamed to contest the will of the gods. She would not lose them. She kept repeating it to herself to not lose her thoughts against the throbbing ache and chaos in her head. To not lose them, even as the last step of the Windwalker chimed right next to her with a resounding boom, her voice ringing high. Words mangled together for Ribali, floating between the heat, and the drumming pain.
Wimd-wind- Was the only thing she caught before the windstorm threw her aside, scattering glass dust into a cloud of sharp broken obsidian and soft marbleglass.
For a short moment, she flew untethered, feeling nothing but the cold whistle of the wind, her limbs blind.
With her head upturned by the cyclone, she stared with her ears instead. Past that tall ceiling of many clicking gears and their metal, she hoped there were stars. She imagined them falling from the faraway skies to meet her, her guilt dragging them down for her.
But as the wind was done with her and Ribali’s obsidian claws skid against the metal to slow her down, they cracked off shards and dust of glass that she would only feel. They left marks she’d only ever touch. Her blood brimmed with a haze that’d never be crimson. Her beautiful creations were nothing but a ring and cold at her throat.
Nothing but burning, searing pain in her flesh.
Ribali exhaled. Droplets of heated blood dripped on the floor with three sharp rings. Her tail twitched, echoing her pain as she rose to her full height. Spikes seared through her form as she pushed forward with the last of her breath. She would butcher them all if it made heaven look. The decisive Dreamer. The slippery, weaseling Windwalker. The brave, but disgusting Snottrap. With her bare hands, if she had to.
“I am Ribali,” She called, voice picking up into a rasping roar equal parts bestial and divine. “And I will see the sky again!”
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