[P] Softly, the waves sigh

[Eik]

The sun and its consistency was equal parts mocking and reassuring.

He began, finally, to think he understood why so many worshipped the sun god with such fanaticism. It was nothing as simple as what he had once assumed. It was not about asking for kindness, for deliverance from the worst of the scorching summer days or a kiss of warmth in winter. It was not about stupidity, not the natural conclusion of a downtrodden and illiterate people scrambling for something-- anything-- bigger than themselves.

He came to think the sun God was so compelling to the people because of consistency. Because the world could unwind itself into madness and filth and chaos and the same sun would continue to rise every day. Indifferent. Consistent. It was a taste of the infinite, a puzzle we hoped to solve with faith.

His thoughts on the matter changed very slowly, so slowly that he had not realized they were changing, had not realized they were there at all until he was changing, all of him passed over in great big brushstrokes of colors he had never before considered, for he quite liked the stark beauty of the world in greyscale. He had a lot of time to think these days, alone (so very, neatly, sharp-edged alone) and outcast from his country, whose king he meant to kill.

Hunger has driven Eik to the seaside cliffs, where scrawny grasses manage to... well,not fluorish but survive, at least, thanks in no small part to the fog that rises off the water each morning. The pickings are slim and hard won, but make a far easier meal than skinning and eating a cactus. At first he does not notice the eyes on him, until they stare and stare and he slowly drifts toward them as he forages and eventually there is nothing he can do except to notice those strange, intelligent eyes. He meets them with his own depthless black gaze, and finally snorts with a shake of his head. "Yes?"

*
OOC:@Nizizi I hope this is okay <3 unfortunately Eik is a grump these days. feel free to throw Only at him if you'd prefer! Set in Solterra at some seaside cliffs.

[Nizizi]

Kinder und sterne küssen und verlieren sich

The crater that marks Nizizi's beginning is losing its profound depth and shape as it resists the nature of the Gemini tides and the Hoarish winter winds.  Three days have passed, and what was once a flat stretch of land that made up most of the coast line is an absurdly large tidepool now, several feet wide and even moreso deep. 

It is so alien, with its silence,

its stillness,
its suddeness,

It is a grave first,
And now, a cradle.
Death and Rebirth, together.  

And now, native soil at which the Creator of it spends most of Its time.

Well, most of it.

The crater seems undisturbed, magical.  Protected without sign or spell to hold the curious at bay.  Perhaps it is within an animal's instinct(ours), enlightened or not, to avoid certain signals that Nature gives us.  Vibrations can tell anyone, that this tidepool is guarded by something other than the Sea itself .  And perhaps,

Perhaps the Sea is also being protected by It too, 

.. for the beach is eerily silent, for a Saturday morning.





Nizizi has assimilated to the vibrations of this planet, now It begins to learn. Now that it can learn, It has come to believe that the gravity deep inside of this planet is created by the sea -- crashing and coursing, pushing and pulling, spinning everywhere, and mostly out of control from anything but itself.  It is like blood through the ventricles of a heart, constantly welding a soul to the living|dying prison it must exist|decay within, that it thrashes wildly to escape every day. 

Anxiety, restlessness, discord.

The outsider does not know that the sea's pulse is none other than Its own heart beating in a painfully mortal shell as it suffers, healing but suffering.  

Adaption, tolerance, intrigue.

The outsider thinks that the earth shifts when It breathes in and out -- that the gales in the wind around It change angles with every breath.  It does not realize that It has a fever because it has an infection.  It does not know what an infection is.  All it knows is what an invasion feels like.  It is a kind of hunger.  A good and useful kind. A terrible kind.  An insatiable kind.

How does this earth beneath Its feet hunger?  Does it?

Does it hunger like I do? Nizizi wonders, but It does not know why It wonders. Nizizi only believes in Entropy,

Moving outward and forward,
Life's design,
In destruction of infrastructure (reversal|collapse?)

Nizizi knows hunger.  It knows that the tide brings life to the crater.  It knows Time and so It waits for that tide.  It knows that when the water comes, It can satisfy Its hunger the only way It knows how.  If others, like that thing that tried to eat It come, It may never understand what it is like to not hunger.  The growling in Its stomach is almost as ferocious as any dragon or bear and so it has learned how to be brave.

And It has learned how savage Its bravery can be.

Early beach-combers know that something is out there.  They know that whatever It is, that it waits|waiting,

-in hiding.
Somewhere.
It could be anywhere.

It has not been seen.  It is unknown and because it is unknown it cannot be defined by any polarity that this world holds.  It is Unidentifiable.

It has been witnessed.  And those who saw It know that It flies.  For It flew fast, far, and fathomless in the darkest of night's like a shooting star made out of chalcopyrite dust particles and angel breath.  Only the Skywatchers know if it, they are the ones who spotted It by the light of one waning, sliver-thick moon.  Those who saw It falling did not know that It crashed meteorite-hard into this|their soil and shook the tide out of cycle from the disturbance from its landing.

A Flying Object.  That is all they knew.

The only one who Knew what had been seen, had been the one to save Nizizi from the Unwelcomer who tried to eat It.



It has been three days since the UFO was first identified.

Only now it is not a massive bearfight between Nizizi and the Unwelcomer that draws the spotter's attention.  It is the Changeling's staring, alien-black eyes in the roaming fog that gets It caught.  Eik, so different from the last One and yet the same, It tracked him from Its crater|cradle.  Up until now, It had no thought that it might be too large of prey.  Too much for the hunger It needed, for Its need was not as large today. Besides, It has a breen of fish It caught and carried all the way here.

This Eik, he does not charge Nizizi, but questions at It instead.  Nizizi hears him just as It sees him.  Head tilting very inquisitively, eyes blinking fast, quick, smartly.  It processes many concepts but cannot find that one thing It needs to understand him. 

It might hurt me like the First One  It remembers too easily, for it was only a few days ago.

Nothing stops Nizizi, so sleek and curious a doe, from manifesting into a feral beast.  Its arches Its neck, twisting like an asp as it bares Its many teeth and red-red tongue in defense.  It sprays winter steam with a full belly of hot air through a viscious, unusual hiss.  Its wings rise high, wide - wider than the imagination can force into reality with so much vapor obscuring the true span of it.  Equine-shaped, clearly, but not equine-furred-or-feathered, and colored like a churning titanium rainbow even in the wintry atmosphere.   It looks like It might not belong here.

?

It seethes, It postures, It is unfriendly looking to say the least.

Electrifying, but it is only a bolt of lighting-white hair blizzarding around in an uproar from the springing of massive, cumbersome, wings. 

"NO."

And that is when, Eik least expects it, Nizizi unbuckles the tension in Its tail and lets the darted tip whip forward - but not to strike him.

But to unload Its breakfast at him in one great heave of strength - all that It has.
Six wet, clammy, dead river trout, still fresh and gooey.  
Undressed, unscaled, and very sticky.

It knows that It is too new|young, and quite weak|lost, and much smaller than It boasts itself to be as It folds back together in one tiny, peacock-bright package and lopes|waddles like a sea creature back into the toiling fog.

N I Z I Z I
die traumgötter brachten mich in eine landschaft

 

[Eik]

In the training he went through as a boy, they said repetition
repetition
re-pe-ti-tion
is what made killers of warriors.

They said you had to make the movement second nature, so that in a fight all you had to do was turn off your mind and let your body do what it knew how to do.

But for as long as he could remember, Eik could cleave his mind in two-- and that is how he became a killer. Because when swinging fists and lashing out with teeth, a part of him could always be elsewhere. Away to where the sea crashed violently against the shore, or where the grass grew tall as his shoulders. It made him good at what he did, because he did not have to rely on repetition. Half of his mind could improvise, could expedite, and the other half could be far away, spinning cobwebbed poetry.

Perhaps this skill of his, this half-here half-elsewhere nature, is what drew that strange magic into his veins. Although he also wonders, sometimes, if he was drawn to the magic and not the other way around. (always pondering the chicken and the egg, this one. always churning circles in search of the line. never content with a damn thing)

He's doing it again, right now, that splitting of the mind, and even as his attention draws to the stranger part of it is elsewhere, opening and closing doors made of stormclouds. Until the stranger bares its teeth and it strikes him that this creature is perhaps not Horse as he first thought.

Suddenly, the two halves combine and she has all of his attention. It is too late.

"What the--"

He dodges one-- no, two fish. The others slap his chest and shoulders with strange, soft squelching sounds (not at all familiar like the dull thud of hooves slamming into him) almost musical as they hit in quick succession. He is more shocked and confused than hurt, and the way the creature skitters off reminds him of a wounded animal-- and he realizes, as they retreat into the fog, they are wounded.

His magic reaches out instinctively and skims the top of the creature's mind without his command. It is as thoughtless as the beating of the heart. She (she?) is mostly things unknown to him. Flecks of stardust (which is dull and grey, not the shimmering dust of fairytales) and a wild, swaying darkness and-- there, something familiar, something slick and dark and slippery-- fear.

She is afraid of him.

"Wait--" he calls out gently, reaching out his magic to plant the seed in her mind: wait. It is a command that she will not hear but her body will. He reinforces it with a calm energy (he was good at calm) and a suggestion of trust. He steps forward just until he can see her again through the lazy fog. "You're hurt," he speaks slowly. His magic takes root in her mind and shows her a picture of a wounded tree, bleeding sap. The sap thickens and stops and the wound slowly grows over with new bark. Healing. "I can help you," his magic whispers to her mind.

- - -
@Nizizi that reminds me of this hyperlapse of the future (a 30 minute video but well worth it!)