Re: Intense Struggle Season 2! (Round 3: Castle Suterrea)
09-25-2011, 01:06 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.
Despair comes in many flavors. There’s despair that comes hand-in-hand with death. There’s despair a la mid-life crisis. And then there’s the despair of knowing your very purpose, your only function and use to the world and realizing that there was no way for you to achieve it due to certain circumstances that make you completely useless.
The Spirit, housed in its little pendant, swung lightly from the tendrils of its thief. It was glowing. It was lighting the way towards Lillian. The Spirit couldn’t stop this, nor could it even mislead the bloodthirsty plant. It couldn’t escape, couldn’t even move. It had failed to protect its ward and it was about to fail again, no, even worse, it was about to lead her murderer straight towards her.
What would be worse? To stay swinging amongst the leaves of a murderous bush in the small hope that somehow, it would be able to protect Lillian when they both got there? Or to attempt to escape from its thief, generate a constant barrier to prevent him from picking it up again so that he would never reach the girl while she was in the hands of who-knows-what?
It was torment to not know the state of Lillian’s well-being. But it was also torture to even think of witnessing her death. Should the Spirit urge Reudic to slow down or speed up?
Maybe the worst part was that the Spirit didn’t even have a hypothetical god to beseech, to plea for her safety. It simply had to wait with its ambivalence and suspense.
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Reudic continued onwards, completely unaware of any nearby dilemma wreaking havoc on any pendant. The plant had no similar questions. What he only focused on was going faster, faster, faster, find the girl before anybody else. Kill her, break her body before anybody else. If he concerned himself with anything else, he was almost certain he would fail in his goal, so he continued driving himself forward with amazing bullheadedness, crashing through anything that got in his way, either barreling through monsters or flying past them while they triggered traps in their attempts to catch him.
And then finally, he burst into a completely darkened room.
It was musty and cold and smelled of iron, though none of those things really mattered to a psychic rosebush that much. What did matter was that there was no light besides what was coming from the doorway and the pendant. But that was enough to illuminate the corner where Lillian and her captor were.
Reudic didn’t entirely understand what was happening between the pseudo-woman and the girl. She was holding her high, her breath a dark wispy thing cloaking up the room, her face much too close to the other for her to have any good intentions. The shapeshifter glanced up, surprised and irritated, and Reudic slammed into the both of them, causing her to drop Lillian and him to drop the Spirit. He immediately wrapped his tendrils around the girl’s neck and squeezed.
“NO! YOU ARE NOT HARMING MY SISTER!” The shapeshifter leapt, slicing off any strangling vines with her claws, and the two of them started a struggle as Lillian fell to the floor once more.
In a corner, the Spirit sat and watched. It watched Lillian writhe and cough, scratching at the thick vines still wrapped around her neck. It watched her cough out dark, wispy smoke, and it sat and worried.
Despair comes in many flavors. There’s despair that comes hand-in-hand with death. There’s despair a la mid-life crisis. And then there’s the despair of knowing your very purpose, your only function and use to the world and realizing that there was no way for you to achieve it due to certain circumstances that make you completely useless.
The Spirit, housed in its little pendant, swung lightly from the tendrils of its thief. It was glowing. It was lighting the way towards Lillian. The Spirit couldn’t stop this, nor could it even mislead the bloodthirsty plant. It couldn’t escape, couldn’t even move. It had failed to protect its ward and it was about to fail again, no, even worse, it was about to lead her murderer straight towards her.
What would be worse? To stay swinging amongst the leaves of a murderous bush in the small hope that somehow, it would be able to protect Lillian when they both got there? Or to attempt to escape from its thief, generate a constant barrier to prevent him from picking it up again so that he would never reach the girl while she was in the hands of who-knows-what?
It was torment to not know the state of Lillian’s well-being. But it was also torture to even think of witnessing her death. Should the Spirit urge Reudic to slow down or speed up?
Maybe the worst part was that the Spirit didn’t even have a hypothetical god to beseech, to plea for her safety. It simply had to wait with its ambivalence and suspense.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reudic continued onwards, completely unaware of any nearby dilemma wreaking havoc on any pendant. The plant had no similar questions. What he only focused on was going faster, faster, faster, find the girl before anybody else. Kill her, break her body before anybody else. If he concerned himself with anything else, he was almost certain he would fail in his goal, so he continued driving himself forward with amazing bullheadedness, crashing through anything that got in his way, either barreling through monsters or flying past them while they triggered traps in their attempts to catch him.
And then finally, he burst into a completely darkened room.
It was musty and cold and smelled of iron, though none of those things really mattered to a psychic rosebush that much. What did matter was that there was no light besides what was coming from the doorway and the pendant. But that was enough to illuminate the corner where Lillian and her captor were.
Reudic didn’t entirely understand what was happening between the pseudo-woman and the girl. She was holding her high, her breath a dark wispy thing cloaking up the room, her face much too close to the other for her to have any good intentions. The shapeshifter glanced up, surprised and irritated, and Reudic slammed into the both of them, causing her to drop Lillian and him to drop the Spirit. He immediately wrapped his tendrils around the girl’s neck and squeezed.
“NO! YOU ARE NOT HARMING MY SISTER!” The shapeshifter leapt, slicing off any strangling vines with her claws, and the two of them started a struggle as Lillian fell to the floor once more.
In a corner, the Spirit sat and watched. It watched Lillian writhe and cough, scratching at the thick vines still wrapped around her neck. It watched her cough out dark, wispy smoke, and it sat and worried.