Seaside 6: Six at the Beach

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Zee is interrupted by another splash.
This one is very large, like a building-sized sea creature just emerged from the water and is standing on the beach.
"Zee! Thank goodness I found you!" A familiar voice calls, only much louder.
Selekhael sure has grown since the last time they'd seen each other... Earlier today, most likely. "Something terrible is going to happen, I, uh, need your help!"

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Zee was reaching up to remove the sea weed from her hair (and possibly the fish from her head) when suddenly-!

SELEKHAEL!

Except big.

Really big!

It's pretty obvious exactly what's going on here, which means a pretty big smile spreads across Zee's face.

Not as big as Selekhael, though.

Despite the fact that Zee could probably smile that big BUT it would require her to be unbound which she would rather avoid doing until she's safely under water and out of sight.

"Selekhael!" Zee gasps as the ophanim. "Haha, you gained some weight! Congratulations on the host-promotion! A Season now, right? Wow you look great! What sort of terrible thing are we talking about?"

A beat.

Zee narrows her eyes suspiciously.

So does the fish on her head.

"Wait, is this a time travel thing?"

Zee hates time travel.

It's way too confusing.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"Uh, thanks," The titanic lion-eagle-coral-ring creature replies, But it's part of the problem! I was, uh, in the middle of a quest and then all of a sudden I turned huge like this and the people I was rescuing started bowing down and worshipping me and I tried to get them to stop but they wouldn't and then they started all looking like me and so I ran away but I broke a lot of stuff and I think I hurt some more people by accident because I'm really huge and then I got out of there and, uh, came back now in order to stop all that from happening. We've, uh, only got five days; if I, uh, went further back, the paradox would kill me." To answer the question, yes, it's time travel stuff. Be sure to bring headache medicine.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

"Woah woah woah, slow down," Zee says, making some calming 'hold on' gestures with her hands. She's very concerned here because what Selekhael just described is quite serious. Not the end of the world but definitely serious. "Okay, first, you consecrate everything around you now any time you're unbound. You were probably so worried about why those people were acting weird that you might not have noticed it's altering the ground, too. Or the water, I guess."

Sure enough, the water near Selekhael is slowly changing into liquid aether, the stuff of space itself. Syrupy and thick, a blue as brilliant as the sky that glitters and swirls as the sun caresses it. The sand under her feet shifting into deep blue-black spongy particles speckled with motes of starlight. All twist and shift with pleasing geometric spirals. The heavenly materials are immediately recognizable as what she can build with after digging up some earth.

"That's what happened to those people, you consecrated them, too. You filled them with your Path to the point that it's the most important thing to them. They'll want to do everything they can to spread your forgiveness now, which... I mean, your Path is a pretty great one I would say. Obviously I'm more partial to my own but hey there's more than one way to climb a Tower, right?"

Zee gives a little shrug.

"So... those people? They're your priests now. They'll spread word of your Path. You... can't convince them to stop," Zee admits, wincing a little. "Believe me, I've tried before. But so long as you make sure they're not being evil cultists or something they're harmless. They'll feed you power to help you grow. It isn't exactly nice to consecrate someone who didn't ask for it but I'll bet if you ask for forgiveness they'll give it."

Of course they will.

Knowing Selekhael, they probably already did.

"In the short term preventing this from happening again isn't hard. So long as you're in your bound form you're safe to be around. Since you're big you'll have to actively feed every month or so now but just make sure to do that well away from any people and it's perfectly safe."

Totally safe!

Perfectly fine.

There!

Everything is all explained now and-

Wait.

Did she say she wants to undo it?

Zee closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Hold on. You had a host-advance and accidentally consecrated a village. And so you went back in time to stop yourself from doing that," Zee summarizes. She points both pointer fingers down at the surf. "Which is why you're here. Why can't you just tell past-Selekhael not to go to that village?"

Of course she can't, Zee. Talking to your past self if you don't remember doing that is the surest way to create a bunch of paradox. Come on this is basic time-travel stuff even your headfish probably knows about it.

Speaking of, that headfish is starting to look a bit like a lionfish.

Not like... the pointy poisonous fish.

Like a fish that is also kind of a lion.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael is a bit busy worrying about the people she infected to worry about the ground, water, and fish she's also infecting. "I can't do that! I don't remember talking to myself!" Does Zee not know anything about time travel? "Uh, talking to yourself is the most dangerous thing you can do, because it, uh, makes their actions unpredictable. Uh, also we can't just stop me from going there. If we do, all those villagers will, uh, be stomped flat by the giant monster." Did someone say "mission creep?" Because that monster thing might be important.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Zee stares blankly at Selekhael for a few moments after that initial objection.

Mostly because Zee does not know the first thing about time travel.

After that second bit, though she seems to get it.

"Oh, because you don't remember talking to you that would make a paradox. Okay, I get that."

Maybe.

Not really.

"But wait, if you went back in time to stop yourself from consecrating the village and trampling some of their buildings and stopped yourself then that never would have happened, right?" Zee starts off, feeling her brain knotting already. "So then you never would have had to go back in time to do that. But then it would have happened so you would have to go back and- nnngh."

That's an expression of pain and confusion, right there.

"I really hate time travel. I'm a seraphim, Selekhael, I deal with things that make sense. But you're my friend so I'll do what I can to help you out, okay? I'll help you figure out how to prevent you from wrecking the village AND how to stop this monster from destroying said village. Sounds like a twistier quest than what I usually deal with but hey sometimes you have to expand your horizons and sometimes that requires getting involved with things you aren't totally comfortable with like temporal nonsense."

She glances off toward the deep ocean again.

"Buuuuuut it just so happens that this isn't a great time for me. I was just about to head to the ocean floor for a bit of a snack. Once you get big if you don't feed every now and again the binding kinda unwinds all on its own and all of a sudden you're huge and all Do not be afraid!y at inconvenient times and places. Which you recently noticed. Will notice? Ugh."

TIME TRAVEL! She hates it.

"So I've got to scoot. Or at least most of me has to scoot. I think I'll try leaving a fragment of me behind to help you out? I've haven't tried splintering off myself before but it should be pretty easy since I'm made of lots of mes," Zee reasons as she hops off her rock and begins wading into the surf, handing Selekhael the lionfish as she passes. Shortly there after she slips off perpendicular to reality and allows herself to unfold. A few seconds after that the incomprehensibly large head of Yezekiel crests the waves, her throat sort of... convulses a few times... and then she spits a Selekhael-sized another her into the shallows.

The second, smaller Yezekiel looks briefly disoriented by the process. "Oof, that's a loopy feeling."

"Have fun you two! Enjoy your time loops or whatever! Try not to eat too many people or the Watchers will probably get mad at you!"

Helpful advice.

Giga!Yezekiel vanishes below the waves.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael shakes her head. "It's not because it's a paradox. I'm, uh, trying to cause a paradox by saving those people, uh, from me. It's because I don't know what I'd, uh, do with future information. I, uh, might avoid the village and therefore, uh, none of this happens. Or I might decide that I, uh, have to go to the village to stabilize the loop and protect myself from paradox." Or numerous other things. "Oh, uh, okay. I'll, uh, let you do that. Bye!... Wait, uh, the who?" Now Selekhael has something else to worry about as well.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Zee's declaration that she hates time travel still stands.

But!

At least it sounds like Selekhael took that tutorial on using the Time Sphere and time travel! Which is a good thing. Now someone will know something about this nonsense.

Anyway!

Small Yezekiel gives a streeeeetch and twists her neck to one side a bit. Legs, wings, tail, just stretching all the things.

"Oh wow it feels great to stretch the legs and sundry other limbs after being cooped up in gigantamax-mode for so long," she says with a half-laugh half-yawn before folding everything flat and giving a few playful pronks through the surf. She's still the size of a house and mashes some craters into the sand but she seems to be enjoying herself. "I really should have tried this earlier."

The seraphim flashes a fang-filled smile over at Selekhael, fixing those eyes of stellar darkness on her friend. "So! You're the time travel expert, I'm just here for assistance. How do we stop this disaster from happening? And don't worry too much about the Watchers they'll probably only get mad at you if we don't stop the village consecrating whoopsie from happening. Even then it's just one village and it was an accident. I've got a bit of an understanding with them, right? I don't intentionally eat people and help thwart the nasty empyreans and they in turn refrain from smiting me! Everyone wins."

Yezekiel's presence is likewise warping her surroundings, turning water into liquid sunlight and sand into marrow-like silvery glass full of radiance. Terrain is part of a balanced diet! Om nom nom.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"So, uh, there's this village called Redcliff not far from here. It's, uh, a mining settlement of sorts. In five days, it's, uh, going to be attacked by a giant monster that comes up out of the water. I, uh, will be there, because, uh, I will take a quest to help evacuate people. Uh, the monster will get there sooner than expected, uh, during the evacuation, and, uh, I'll be pulling people out of a crushed building when suddenly I, uh, get super huge and then everything starts going wrong." Selekhael explains what is going to have already happened. "So, uh, we need to, uh, find a way to stop that, uh, monster from attacking, right? If we do, I won't be there and, uh, the village will be safe."

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

"Okay, I think I've got it," Yezekiel replies as she rears up on her hind hooves and laces her fingers together above her head for yet another streeeetch. Oh gosh this feels so good. She gives her shoulders a nice roll and then leans against the pretty sizable boulder she was sitting on top of earlier. The barnacles and limpets on the rock begin to steadily mutate in her presence. Then she begins counting off on her weird cervine hoof-fingers. "Right, so. Step one, we got to this village. Step two,we find the monster. Step three, we beat up said monster. Step four... uuhh... wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff?"

She unfurls her shoulder wings and wiggles her leafy pinions to indicate a level of temporal nonsense.

"Step five present but I guess still kind of future you never has to go to the village to help evacuate people and as a result you don't have your oops in the middle of a quest!"

A beat.

"Wait, how do we make sure future-you doesn't just have an oops somewhere else instead?" Yezekiel asks, tapping a hoof on the end of her snoot thoughtfully. "For that matter, we should probably figure out what caused your host-advance. Usually that takes awhile and doesn't just happen out of nowhere. Like, me and also the rest of me advanced through the arena by cooperating with each other to rig the matches. It wasn't like I was just walking around and all of a sudden BLORP! I'm the size of a house."

Because BLORP! sounds like it's what happened to Selekhael which is kind of unusual.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"Oh, uh, right," Selekhael responds. She hadn't thought about that. "If I'm not there, I'll, uh, be somewhere else when it happens. Uh, I don't know what caused it though. Like you, uh, said, I just was suddenly blorped to the size of a house." Blorp is about the right sound, too. "Uh, I guess we could go to the village and, uh, look around to see if there's anything strange there that could, uh, cause it."

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Of course it's the right sound.

What OTHER sound would someone make when they suddenly get enormous?

Yezekiel nods back sagely.

Mostly she's thinking about how awkward it feels to be standing upright like this. She could just Shape herself to rearrange how her joints work but she doesn't feel like doing that. So instead she just kind of awkwardly stands there leaning up against the rock like a deer getting ready to have a slap-fight with another deer.

"Right, right, so this'll be a whole investigation quest! That actually sounds pretty fun, as far as quests go. I've really got to think about doing this splinter thing for quests more often! I bet there's all sorts of stuff I can get away with as a Glory that I can't as a Splendor. So!"

She throws her front legs up in the air at 'So!'

And promptly topples over sideways into the surf with a tremendous splash.

Yezekiel just kind of... lays there. On her side. Reclining a bit. To make it look like she totally meant to do that and isn't getting use to her body proportions again.

"When do we set off? Right now? We've got five days that's plenty of time for sleuthing."

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael is on all fours herself, Yezekiel, you don't have to stand on two if you don't want to. "The longer we wait, uh, the less time we have to prevent it. Five days seems like a while, but, uh, we don't even know what we're looking for. Let's get, uh, moving." She splashes into the surf and starts swimming.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Yezekiel just felt like standing on two legs, okay?

She didn't have to she just thought it would look neat and it turned out to be kind of dumb instead.

Sometimes that's just how things go.

Anywho!

Sounds like it's time to go!

The seraphim isn't... you know. Aquatic. At all. She can swim decently but she isn't exactly built for it. Instead she just reigns in her glow a bit, spreads her wings, and takes to the air. She flies low to the waves, occasionally dipping the end of her tail in and watching the water spray in a wake behind her just for the sheer joy of it. She really hasn't been able to just mess around while in her unbound shape without fear of someone spotting her for years and this level of freedom is a bit intoxicating.

It'll be really nice when she returns to the others and their experiences all get integrated again. Definitely refreshing. Probably more fun that sitting on the bottom of the ocean for a few days, that's for sure.

"Hey, so, aside from the crisis how are you liking the whole Season thing? Definitely different, right?" Yezekiel asks. She remembers when she finally got her turn at winning a pair of matches for advancement it was a HUGE rush.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"It's, uh, really weird. But in a good way." Selekhael answers after a pause. "There's so much of me and I'm so much stronger, I'm afraid I won't be able to fit everything back in when I need to look human again. I can, uh, feel time flowing so much more easily than I used to, and I can, uh, travel more precisely and feel the risk of paradox ahead of time more easily. It's, uh, how I knew I had to come now to fix this." She's not nearly as playful as her traveling companion, just paddling through the water and trailing a wake of liquid space behind. "And it's, uh, so strange that everything around me changes just because I'm close to it." Weirder still is the weird sense of rightness she gets from the altered terrain. She knows intellectually that the water is supposed to be clear and flow easily, not be a thick blue syrup, but yet the syrupy fluid still feels right.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

It feels right. Like it ought to be that way. Like this is the Correct way for things to feel.

It's as if the world is just...

Too thin.

Like everything is made out of insubstantial mist and their presence is making everything around them real.

"Haha, don't worry too much about being able to fit," Yezekiel laughs, dipping to one side to allow her wingtip to ply through the water in a spray of prismatic liquid sunlight. "If I can fit my entire mountainous GIGABUTT into a human-sized space you'll do just fine! It took me a few tries to get it right the first time but hey that just means we can practice for a little while once we get closer to the village. You'll definitely figure it out; you're way better at this than you give yourself credit for."

The amount of levity in the seraphim's tone, the raw level of radiant determination, it's really hard to find one's self disagreeing.

Just because she can, Yezekiel pulls up into the air and performs a great big loop! At the apex of the maneuver she gives a VERY startled passing albatross a precisely aimed *smeck* on the beak, somehow causing the bird to blush.

"We remind the world how things are supposed to be without the Dreamheart messing it all up," Yezekiel says as she levels off just above the waves again. "But yeah, I get you. It is pretty strange when it starts happening the first time. And forcing your Path onto someone... well, it didn't sit right with you either, did it? If someone wants to be part of my Path that's up to them, right? But to just overwhelm them with it? I dunno, that seems bad to me. Especially if it's intentional. Which is why we're going to get this fixed!"

She smiles down at her ophanim friend, a great big grin full of great big teeth.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael wouldn't call Zee a friend. Their relationship is more complicated than that (Somewhere deep inside, the Ophanim wishes she could call Zee "mum," but that's a conversation for another time). One thing is definitely true though, Selekhael really is better at this than she gives herself credit. Uh, no, it didn't feel good. It was like the people they were were gone, they, uh, were, uh, something else now." Selekhael is definitely uncomfortable with that idea.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Zee has a pretty strong predilection toward taking all the poor lost folks who wash into Trog's under her wings, doesn't she?

Most end up setting off from the kind start she provides to forge their own path.

But others?

They stick around.

Yezekiel may not be a mother's love personified in quite the way that her progenitor is, but her maternal care is certainly an echo of that.

She isn't the Mighty are Strong. She is the Mighty Strengthen. To bind up. To bind together. To repair. To encourage.

If Selekhael ever called her mum she would probably get a hug and her hair rubbed comfortingly.

And it sounds like some encouraging is what Selekhael needs right now.

"If it makes you feel better, they weren't gone. Not really. Your Path is your purpose; to bring forgiveness and grace to the world. Just as mine is to strengthen both myself and others. When you consecrated them their own hopes and dreams and desires got replaced with your Path. They were filled to overflowing with a zeal for bringing more forgiveness into the world and they saw you, rightly so, as a manifestation of that desire. It's like someone having a transformative spiritual experience. Suddenly all the stuff they've been doing doesn't feel so important anymore because they've got this divine mission, right?" Yezekiel tries to explain as she trails her claws through the sea, leaving shimmering splashes behind herself. "So they're still the same person, just with new goals. BUT!"

Important but.

"Taking away someone's hopes and dreams like that isn't kind. I know some empyreans would argue that it's Correct but I think they're wrong. Everyone needs to choose their Path, even if they're choosing one that's terrible."

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"I, uh, I didn't mean to. I wish I could apologize." Selekhael's obviously still beating herself up about this. The Mighty Forgive, right? She doesn't feel particularly mighty right now. Really she needs to forgive herself for her mistake.

The fast-moving Empyreans pass nearby a fishing boat, the crew of the small vessel staring and shouting as they see the strange creatures. "Uh, we're getting close. We should, uh, find somewhere to stop and change."

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

"You can learn from your mistake and do better," Yezekiel encourages.

And then oh hey boat!

Whoop, the seraphim makes sure to give them plenty of space. She has a pretty good feel for how large her aura of consecration is. The size seems to be directly related to how big she is. Which means she can kind of use herself as a rough measuring rod to figure out what a safe distance is.

Four times her own length, nose to tail tip, extending out from her skin. Essentially a great big three dimensional shadow of herself projected out into the world around her.

She makes sure to give the fishing boat about three times that space just to be safe.

"Those sea cliffs over there are probably good," Yezekiel says, angling toward the cliffs in question. "We can land on top then walk toward the village."

As far as she can tell, there's nothing up there but cypress, heather, and naked granite. Not much in the way of people.

[Ironsmith]

Elster
"That's preposterous! ... If it weren't exactly what this bloody job is about." Diablo isn't especially surprised. "Tell me more about this Nexus. I'm going to need to be able to get my bearings if I'm going to find my target." Or the rest of the team of 4 he was supposed to be arriving with. His scout 'mech is highly upgraded to hold its own in close quarters, but this mission would be a lot easier with the others and their respective specialties.

[Elster]

"Ah." Duffle nods. "Well, if you want to hear more about the Nexus as a whole, I can't help ya much. I've mostly just been keeping to my route. I could tell you a few things about Butterfly Bay, though. Quiet place. Lots of rich folk around, a few poor squatters nearer the beach. Very popular with the lupines, for some reason. Might be 'cause of an unusually good view of the moon or something. Never really clear on that. Point is, expect to see a lot of rich people with shaggy hides and pointy teeth."

Codebreaker's Home

"Kyrie, I hope you haven't been going hungry on your blood-stuff." CB clicks his tongue. Though honestly he wasn't sure if bigger strigoi actually need more blood. He hasn't ever really wanted to pry on their vampire private lives.
"A growing boy needs his nutrients." he snickers. "But really, you just let me know. I know you and Siana take the debt thing way too seriously but if there's something that isn't money-related I can help you with I'd be glad to. You might need some contractors for that place of yours at some point..." Actually CB would gladly help them with things money related, but the Maldwyns are too proud to accept it and he knows it.

[Codebreaker's Home]

"What? No, not really." Kyrie shrugs. "Zee pays me enough from her stock to feed four, and it's only split three ways these days. We've had plenty to drink, and more than that, enough to stash away for certain nights when Owena needs a little more." He gives a nod toward a part of the wall that he knows for a fact has been replaced recently, making it a little clearer what he's alluding to. "As for contractors..." He runs a hand-paw down his snout and sighs. "...Well, I'm not proud to say it, but I've been looking into it. And getting laughed out of every agency in town in the process. Most of them say I'd be better off just tearing down my house and building something more cushy in its place, like an outhouse."

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael is sticking near Yezekiel, so it's not a problem, but she doesn't know how far her aura extends at all (and if she did, she'd probably freak out, four times her length is huge when she's the size of a house). She spreads her large, feathery wings and soars up to the clifftop alongside her draconic counterpart. She lands with a heavy thump, throwing up a cloud of small debris and begins the arduous process of figuring out how to fold up all her extra mass into a human shape.
She finishes in a few moments, though she needs a second pass: there's a coral branch growing out of her hair, her back is speckled with feathers, and a ring of tawny hair floats behind her head where she can't see. "Wow, uh, I feel so tiny now. I was, uh, just looking down at these trees from above."

Elster
"Lupine. You mean wolves." See, that's useful information. Diablo needs to not look shocked by talking wolves when he encounters them, and presumably other strange creatures too. "What about military hardware? I can't presume everywhere is friendly. What's the common level of defenses?"

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

Yezekiel, by contrast, pulls up slightly as she comes in for a landing, fanning both pair of her wings and touching down gently on her hooves. That's definitely something she's had more practice with. Totally beats just sort of belly-flopping into the ground. While the basic knowledge of how to fly comes baked in, learning the finer points takes a bit more investment.

Shortly after landing, Zee has already tucked her extra mass away and she's busy rolling her shoulders and adjusting the little green scrunchy holding up her pony-tail. She isn't dressed in her usual Trog's Tavern outfit, but rather the old gear she used to wear while adventuring back in the day. Sturdy boots, khaki pants with plenty of pockets, a sandy brown turtle-neck, and a muted forest green jacket that's nice and fluffy on the inside. A green scarf flaps in the breeze and a pair of wooden tonfa test in the holsters on her hips.

Wow it's great up here!

The combination of sea breeze and the scent of the cedars is just amazing!

She spends a few moments admiring the view before turning to Selekhael and-

"Ah, hehe, you missed a spot. Still some coral in your hair and your halo is showing," Zee says, unable to see the feathers from where she's standing. "Getting to see things from the sky is wild, isn't it? It's a whole different perspective on the world."

...Zee doesn't appear to have noticed that she's still got a draconic tail sticking out of her butt with the rusty scales on the top and the black triangular scoots on the bottom. As she lazily swishes it back and forth little points of light are bleeding out between the plates.

There's a little yellow ribbon tied in a bow about two thirds of the way down.

[bc56]

Lunch Time
Selekhael reaches back over her head to feel the coral and the halo and shove them back into the big mass of herself outside the visible world. "It's worse than having food stuck in your teeth. At least that feels weird and you can tell when you've got it all. Uh, it looks like you missed a spot too." She points out Zee's tail (although it looks like it might be intentional). "The village should be a mile or so that way," Selekhael turns, revealing the feathers on her back.

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

"I did?" Zee asks, her brow creasing before craning her neck to peer over her shoulder and discover! "Haha, I thought my rear felt longer than normal. Oh wow I totally forgot this version of me had a tail, didn't it? Oh gosh that feels like so long ago. Mom did so much weird stuff with me."

She apparently finds this all deeply amusing.

Zee doesn't appear to be in a hurry to remove the tail, though.

"Feathers on your back, too. Hey, how covert do you think we're going to have to be on this mission? Because if that isn't important we could lean a little harder on the whole celestial aspect. Maybe help them out with some other things and do some inspiring while we're there? It's possible to share your Path with people without consecrating them. If they choose to follow it then it's still a power-boost for you, just without all the creepy mind control. Here, check this out!"

With a theatrical flourish Zee allows a little more of her form to unfurl, a great pair of dragonic wings from her shoulder blades with leafy green pinions each ending in a peacock-like eyespot at the end along with a second pair at her hips. Behind her head covers a pitch-black orb reached in a white nimbus and her ears resembles another much smaller pair of wings. Her whole body is suffused with a subtle radiance.

She spreads arms and wings alike.

"Ta-da! What do you think? Shiny enough? More shiny? Less shiny?"

[bc56]

Lunch Time
"It's not just the flying. Uh, see that boulder over there?" The rock indicated is half again as tall as Selekhael is right now, and many times wider. "Just a moment ago I was, uh, much taller than it, now it's much taller than me. Back when I was, uh, always smaller, the change in perspective wasn't as strong."

Then Zee transforms into a much more angelic figure and suggests continuing the mission in such a guise.

"You, uh, look very impressive. Let's see if I can..." Selekhael's own wings unfurl from her back. Her head unfolds into that of a lioness. A ring of reddish coral floats behind her head, glowing with faint starlight. She has a timeless air about her: one might believe that in millions of years the cliffs she stands upon will crumble, and she will remain there, perfectly unshaken. She laughs, an otherworldly musical tone that resonates with the consumed ground around her. "We make quite a pair. Should we pay the people of Redcliff a visit?"

[Rebonack]

[Lunch Time]

"Ooooh, oh yeah, okay, I know what you mean," Zee responds with a nod, admiring the boulder in question.

It's a pretty nice boulder, all things considered.

That nice salt and peppery color of crystalline igneous rocks, little crystal faces flashing in the sun.

"Yeah it's pretty notable when I'm mountain sized, that's for sure. But then again, I spend most of my time all curled up on myself since, well, once you hop up to the next host then just seeing you can consecrate someone. So I have to be SUPER careful."

The whole experience is like walking on egg-shells at all times.

And then Selekhael does her thing and the tiniest of goofy smiles blooms on Yezekiel's face.

"Oh gosh, you don't know do you? C'mon let's head to town I'll tell you on the way."

During their walk to the village, Zee will explain to her friend who Sekhmet is.

Also?

Zee will have nixed the tail. Sure, she likes it, but tails are almost always displayed as things that only fallen angels have and Zee doesn't want to send mixed messages.

[Reinholdt]

[Shore of distant island]

It's not too hard to follow the foot and hand prints in the sand. Sand is super useful that way. Though Rachel does have to pick up the pace because she thinks the thing is moving faster than it really is. Well that's ok. She exercises regularly with Sarah. Mostly regularly. Close enough!

So instead of being winded when she catches up, Rachel just approaches to what she presumes is a safe distance and calls out to the monster. "Hey you! Yeah you!" Rachel puts her hands on her hips defiantly. "You're scaring the children and you need to stop!"

It has been warned.

[Romantic dinner?]

"Mmmm..." Reinholdt murmurs as Ukry delivers what he only hopes is the first kiss of the evening, a tinge of black lipstick lingering on his lips. "Now that's the kind of pressure I could get used to." Rein says with a little smirk as they part. It was possible to miss the way the outside of their nose had gotten wetter in between those two moments, but Rein did not. It would be better said that Rein chose not to draw attention to it. Few people wanted to be called out for their tears and he can't imagine the witch was any exception.

Reinholdt gets momentarily entranced by the colorful antlers that he nearly misses Ukry's next and most important statement. They... they didn't think him clean?! He nearly chokes and he hadn't even started eating yet! "Ah-ahem! I-I'm sorry, what? Why on the Nexus would you think I wouldn't be clean? I have you know, I'm practically fastidious! I bathe every day, sometimes twice and... oh, maybe the kitchen gave you the wrong idea. Well you did come in at the worst time. I'll be scrubbing that down all day tomorrow, mark my words. You know the saying - 'Cleanliness is better than Godliness'." There's almost the beginning of a pout on Rein's face. Not clean! Just because he dives in musty old tombs and risks the curses of angry undead doesn't mean he doesn't do his laundry and mop the floors!

As he finishes serving the meal to Ukry, Rein tries not to let that misunderstanding phase him. He is still curious after all about a number of things. "Skyland? Uhh... are you referring to Skyside? The city? Or is that some other place I'm not familiar with?" He wouldn't be surprised if there's an area called Skyland out there somewhere.

There was that flash again though and Rein's attention can't be pulled away from it this time. Each time it's happened, he's felt something. Relief. Embarrassment. And they were strange feelings that weren't his. There's definitely more going on here. "Well I could certainly give you a detailed overview of the Nexus and its workings. Heck, I could even give you a lengthy tour, if that's what you want. But... in exchange you're going to have to explain to me why your antlers have been glowing different shades."

[Aurora Alchemi]

Romantic Dinner?

The gazelle lyrri gives a soft giggle, then nods softly. "Well, consider us corrected. We ourselves do appreciate a fine bath, not just in hot springs, but also in the cool, soda, and scented moonlit varieties. You will enjoy our bath in the grove... It is a place half magic, half holy, and half again comfort, and someplace we loose ourselves often." Ukry omits that on more then one occasion that bath is also a literal ritual bloodbath, but those times have been decreasing more and more as time goes on. It's just easier to find less messy substitutes within the nexus, and perhaps Ukry didn't have quite as much... anger? as they had in their youth. "Fortunately we don't anticipate you not being able to come by and experience that... sometime soon." The lyrri weaver gives a soft wink, letting the action imply so much more than the words.

"Ah, yes, skyside. That would be the one. We are sure it would be mildly easier to keep track of the names of all these places if we were to place labels on the doors from our shop, but the idea keeps eluding us at home." Or rather, the idea had occured to Ukry, but they had been too busy messing with Aran and preparing for Rein to remember to actually craft something that looks nice, and they certainly wouldn't stand for something looking thrown together in their abode. "We hear also that there are maps on our phone, but it always seems to lose service when we trip outside of the normally habited areas, which include the space we have warped for our grove." It was somewhat difficult to keep a connected arrangement when one was attempting to mess with the fabric of worlds in a half-safe manner.

Their date's attraction to the glow on their horns prompts a small amount of surprise, something which registers in the empathetic magics. The witch even begins their response with a small gasp of shock. "A-ah, oh we hadn't even noticed it was back." It was an admission of a sort, as the witch's magic was normally tightly controlled, and even empathetic spillovers hadn't happened in many years. But somehow... now... "It's a relic of what we were, at least before we became this thing hidden behind a mask. We could explain it simply enough as emotions spilling into magic, but perhaps a deeper explanation is better." Softly, Ukry reaches up to their horns, drawing down three brilliant gossamer strands of rainbow magic. The first deft fingers manipulate into a majestic gazelle. The second, a faun or satyr, lower half hooved and furred, top half humanoid, bearing the features of a gazelle. The last is woven in moments, becoming a tiny, aurora-esk version of what Ukry's current mask looks like.

For a moment, the witch eyes the three glittering magic statuettes. "We knew ourselves as the grovetenders, long ago, and we watched over the shape and form of our world's natural being. We were crafters of great artworks, sowers of the most fertile gardens, and healers of the highest caliber. In order to properly be one with our craft, we didn't just settle for a magic in our being's fiber, we reached out and touched the magic and physical nature of the world itself. This, we call the tapestry; the place where we weave and wyrdsmith to change the very idea of things. It is a strong power, and with that power came responsibility." Ukry pulls a strand of angry red magic, something that looks malevolent, and allows it to touch one of the statues. Slowly, it spreads, giving the faun shape a limp and crooked back. "Occasionally mistakes were made, errors in the weave. What you might know as wounds, curses, and illness were the result. Some of these were so deep they cut into our very being, becoming inherited and passed from generation to generation."

Ukry pauses, the gazelle statue gaining two smaller children, though one looks extremely frail, and eventually perishes. "It was enough to cut our population to the point we could no longer sustain our people. We had to choose; die off, or manipulate our very being." The witch motions to the humanoid statue, which pulses with weaving and magic, and seems to shift back and forth from masculine to feminine features at random. "It was in this trial and harshness that the world began to lose it's natural places and give way to the cities and constructions of groups like humans. We, as a people, ceased to be the grovetenders, and became the groveseekers, even as our numbers dwindled. Rather than giving up our peaceful nature, or our wanderlust, we became more and more attuned to the world, more linked to our magic. In rare cases even our emotion would change the world around us as you see happening now. Unfortunately these changes made our people even more vulnerable..." The gazelle is shot with a wartime arrow while grazing and dies, the faun is locked in chains of servitude, and the humanoid figure has their horns broken off, their connection with magic evaporating, and their body becoming frail and weak. "We, the witch of faces, had long ago forgotten the empathetic magics that come from our people's horns when they are relaxed and unguarded."

Ukry pauses for a long moment, staring at the hornless statue with a clear connection, before whispering half horsely. "Indeed, we used to wonder if we could ever get to someplace where that situation might happen again, both on the front of comfort and due to the thing we have become..." The frail statue looks back to the chained and dead figures, and seems to sob, before gathering many layers of malevolent magic and wicked looking runes; for several moments, there is silence as Urky watches the magic figure layer curses upon itself until finally it dons a mask and becomes a little lapin, hiding from the forces that befell the other statues. "It is... food for our thought, certainly. But not unwelcome... unless it bothers you?" There is a soft crackle of unsureness in the emotional magics as the little statues dissipate, Ukry looking to Rein as if worried he will tell the witch to bottle the emotion back up. Certainly the explanation wasn't without holes, but the witch seemed almost like they had decided to state the deeper story, just as a way of getting it off their chest. As a way of finally confiding in someone else what they had witnessed as they ran and hid while their species died off, just to try and survive. It wasn't the whole story, but it was a decent chunk.

[Vahnavoi]

[Shore of a distant island]

The monster from the sea halts its lumbering gait, glancing over its shoulder, then turning to face Rachel to get a better look. Its bluish black tongue licks its thin lips, its orange eyes narrowing as it peers at her. Two thin slits have appeared below its eyes, vibrating as it draws in air, proving it does have nostrils at least even if not much of a nose. Dark blood has left visible tear stains under its eyes.

All in all, its face is in that uncomfortable place of nearly, but not quite, human. "Arrrr... ooo.... arrr... ooo", it rumbles, as if trying to reply to Rachel, but struggling to make its mouth form the right sounds. "Are... you... my... moth-er?" It takes a hesitant step towards her and lifts one hand off the ground, as if to reach and touch her, but then something behind her catches its attention. It suddenly stands straight on two feet, looking intently out to the sea. Rachel can estimate it is close to three meters tall from head to toe. If she turns, she can tell its looking at the small skiff belonging to Calm Reed, rapidly approaching the shore. Though turning to look would mean letting at least one eye off the monster...