[P] Face to Face, Blood to Blood

[Emersyn]

Call The Police

The silence that fills the room is so many things; terrible things, wild revelations, seven-year curses, the silence before a disaster strikes, or maybe it is Emersyn rolling ideas around in her head like a worry-stone, over and over and over again - until a raw thought becomes a diamond.  Something clear.  Something concise.  Something with .. a lot of angles.

“Precisely why it is called a murder.  They wanted the unicorn dead.  No missing horn, the motive seems clear enough to me.”   A distinct pitch in her voice denotes a sort of restlessness that often fills the minds of those with fitful spirits.  A violent black sea, one Andras may sail as well.  Emersyn persists with the idea of murder, she is intimately familiar with the word.

Emersyn turns a page in a dusty book with timeless texts within it, it seems enchanted in its own way.  It is unclear what it even is, but the pictographs suggest that it might be a grimoire or a recipe book.  “The eyes and the heart of the Uisge are harvested fresh for uses in Necromancy. No other part shall be collected unless for hexing.”   Emersyn reads the words out loud.  There is a hunger in her that swells, its origins unknown, its intentions even more vague.  Whether she believes in the voodoo of it all or not, Emersyn is bound by no rights or wrongs.

She turns a page.

“How much does something like that sell for on the market place, you think?  I should make my way to Night again.”  Her mind travels far down the road, she goes beyond finding the poacher, she reaches deep into the veins of the hunter to find his secrets.  Where does he go?  Who does he know?  What does he gain from such risky business?  The animals alone that he takes are just as deadly as the forces that now hunt him as if he too were a bounty worth a weight in gold, they are frighteningly strong.  If the warden answers her query, she doesn’t hear it.  She only expects him to stand there and listen to her ponderings.

Another page gets turned.

“I thought for certain aerial sweeps would draw some answers.  It is possible that someone among our own may have something to do with it, but that meeting was such a disaster I hardly doubt anyone there had anything to do with it.”  Turn them on each other with suspicion and wary intrigue, see what that will do as the underlying foundations of a small court fray apart - do it all by inviting them to a community meeting. Emersyn draws a mug near and partakes the sludge that it takes to keep her mind moving at a steady and constant pace.  

“Help yourself, there is plenty.”

She holds a vividly painted field sketch of a deer whose forelegs are a pair of massive colorful wings.  Magic has made it radiant with a coat of the cosmos and horns made of opal, and this is what it might have looked like if it were in a whole piece.  “A powerful component in polyglot spells can be found by harvesting the horns.  They are known as Elderdeer.  It is one of the few that have been historically recorded.   They lived among the Eira and were essentially protected for centuries.  Now we make flutes out of their bones and sell them to children at the marketplaces.”    

Light swings overhead, the wind from outside pushes against the chain which holds the fire.  Dark lines tilt and sway over their looming forms.  “No one has ever been able to prevent this from reoccurring.”   She sets her jaw and exchanges one blue eyed look for another, both dead, both serious, not a shred of humor or gratitude for the other - just a mutual understanding. 


“I do have a problem with all of this." Emersyn debates what she wants to say versus what she needs to say.  The latter gets lost beneath the waves of her fury. 

What she says is less of a secret, and more like a promise.  

“I told Ipomeae that I would not kill anyone for this."  The intelligence is there, but the control is failing.  Desire is wanting.  Fires are burning. And the ice on her soul is gaining depth and width, consuming her.

"But I will."  Emersyn confirms without a doubt.  The room seems to grow several degrees colder with the affirmation of death in the air. 

Then suddenly,


Rabbits billow into the room from the door way, their handler an out of breath pageboy that sheepishly halts at the door as they run in ahead of him.  Each rabbit forfeits their square and she takes each one and lays them out on the table.  Five rabbits out of ten, the message must be short, urgent, or both.

HUNTERS SPOTTED.  SOUTHEAST SHORE. ENTERED VIRIDE AT SUNDOWN. RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.




~~~

@Andras   This design of this creature was partially inspired by this DEERTHING