@Bexley I suppose the scenario is he just quite suddenly comes out of a false wall, thrashing ... shrieking ... just ugly and old. Eventually he yells for help .. this is why drugs are bad.
Nothing good can come out of this, she knows, and yet she is still here: impulsive and grandiose as ever, slinking serpentine through the winding caverns of the Abigo Caves.
Light seems falsified now. What does it even look like? She can’t remember - in the oppressive darkness that surrounds her like a second skin, even the idea of sunlight is something strange and magical, strange for a Solterran. Cool mist and deep shadow envelop her, humid and stifling. Bexley knows her braids must be falling apart, but for once she cannot bring herself to care; she is far more concerned with the wet slosh of mud under her feet, the stalactites dripping icily overhead and how they send trickles down her fragile spine, the tears of frustration building in her blue eyes as she rounds the same corner for the third time, feeling her own footprints replayed against the dirt.
It is an awfully familiar feeling, the mouse of Bexley lost in the maze of Bexley. She thinks back to a year ago, the labyrinth that opened up just near here, and the hours she spent winding through it without an end in sight, and the worst part of it all is that, she knows, however she made it out, it was through no worth of her own: something had picked her up and flung her away, like trash, alive, but like trash. And she had woken up bruised and battered at the base of Veneror Peak, dizzy and black-eyed and utterly confused, and knew that her success was only a sleight hand of the gods.
And the gods are busy now. This is terrifying to think about.
The smell of wet moss fills her nostrils, and near-invisible, in the dark, Bexley’s face contorts into a expression of bitter disgust. The cold grasp of her necklace is almost choking. With a deep inhale, she steels her nerves and pushes forward, narrow shoulders scraping against the damp walls, and for a moment she almost thinks she sees a light at the end of the tunnel, a way out, an escape -
And then an ear-splitting shriek echoes from the wall on her left, and it explodes towards her in a shower of damp, rotted wood and dripping moss, and Bexley ducks away just in time to avoid the body that follows, white-eyed and horned, chips and hunks of bone and dust flying off him and into the atmosphere around them: she screams, shrill and fearful, and scrambles backward as quickly as she can, only to hit a wall within moments. Fear turns her pulse to a pulp, shreds every nerve in her body and lights it on fire. With her heart in her mouth, Bex stands wild-eyed and fearful in the corner, watching the dark figure blur and thrash and then reform, too bewildered to say anything other than, What - the hell - are you?
The cave is its own wild animal now and Bexley’s scream is ripped out of her, dissolved into a series of harsh, strangled gasps as she backs away from the writhing black figure, tail lashing, muscles coiled, head raised and teeth bared - and when she doesn’t think it can get worse, the beating of wings sounds to her left, and a tornado of thin-winged bats goes crashing wild through the cave. Bexley’s heartbeat is so loud in her mouth now that she can’t even shriek. Her nerves go wild live-wire under her skin. Shaking and terrified, she presses further back against the wall, and then, wide-eyed, she realizes that the tunnel is alive.
A yellow-white glow spreads cancerous across the walls. It throws everything into sharp relief - her own shadow, long-legged and spidery ahead of her - the many disappearing figures of the bats as they circle, then flee - even worse, the gaunt, curved figure of the man in front of her. He is something over-aged and nearly monstrous. But somehow, despite the bones and the sharp teeth and the blind eyes, he is a man, Bexley realizes, and at least she knows how to deal with those. With a grip on that steel will, she forces her breath to steady, her pulse to slow. Wide-eyed, she watches Turhan stumble and steady, and when he speaks, something like surprise overtakes her: I am full of poison.
Bexley’s brow shoots upward. Full of poison? He can’t be serious. Can he? Is that a metaphor or a means of escape? And then, if it is, why the hell does he think she’s going to eat him? As sharp as her teeth are, as wild her heart, Bexley Briar is no murderer. At least not one of old men and innocents.
If he is not both - and there’s no way to tell if he is or isn’t, really - at least he is one.
I’m lost too, she answers finally, her low voice echoing in the chamber around them, and at long last her muscles start to unwind, the harsh, battering-ram headache under her temples finally abating as she watches him and realizes danger may not be so imminent. It may not be imminent at all. When it comes down to it, if they ever really cross that line, Bexley is stronger, and younger, and has new magic coursing through her veins like amphetamines ,and she is made of star shine, and sunlight, and she is not afraid.
She is not afraid.
At least that’s what she tells herself, trying to stifle the electric fire in her stomach. And confused, I guess. Do you live here? The low timbre of her voice is tremulous, but the shaking is so faint it might just be imagined, especially by the brain of someone as addled as Turhan. For that Bexley is thankful.
@Bexley Sorry for all the delays. I've kept this golden beauty trapped in a cave far too long! I kind of made this one more fluid to the time lines here. Feel free to add or subtract to the events which has happened during their cave encounter.
Bexley has to physically choke back her incredulity. She feels it like she’d feel the threat of crying, in the back of her throat - rough and saline and overwhelming. It pricks at her nerves like a razorblade pricks the end of a finger. And even as she watches him unravel, lose his rabid behavior bit by slightest bit so that he returns to an almost-lucid state, she does not relax. She can’t.
It would be stupid, and Bexley has been fighting all her life not to act stupid.
He’s come for medicine, he says, and as suspicious as she is of his intention, she’s not doctor or healer enough to prove him wrong. Her gaze catches as easily on the bioluminescent walls as anyone else’s would, but who knows if it’s medicine or poison - who knows if it could kill her even from here, leaching into her skin like a snake leaches venom? (Her lungs tighten then, but it could just be panic.) She squares her shoulders and for a moment thinks about slinking away, but Turhan is (knowingly or not) blocking the easiest path out, and for all her stubbornness Bex thinks she might have to work her way out with strategy instead of her hard head for once.
It’s been a minute since that’s happened, hm? But the Regent is as lost in these caves as anyone possibly could be, and she can’t afford to lose any more advantages. One wrong turn, one slip of the step, one misplaced stride and Solterra’s golden girl will be nothing but bleached bones and festering skin turned to wet green grunge in the darkness of this subterranean hell-complex.
The thought sets her heart sputtering like an oxygen-starved candle.
Yes, she answers finally. Child of Solis. You can take me there -? Surprise colors her voice bright-yellow in the dimness of the cave. Perhaps she’s misjudged him. If he really can find his way from this dungeon all the way to Solterra - where she can’t be sure he’s ever even visited - then he’s smarter and bolder even than she, and she knows her life hangs in his hands as loosely as the feathers fluttering from his dreads. Bexley inhales forcefully.
