Surge of Darkness

[Tear]

Surge of darkness

He took a step, then another and another. The soles of his worn boots scraped over the rocks with each drag of his legs. His knees wobbled suddenly and he sunk down to the cold ground in a heap. It hurt, never had he felt pain like this... A flash of his pink tongue slid over his lips. The taste of blood flooded his senses as he tossed himself forward again and began to crawl. Behind him tracks of red sparkled lively beneath the nights sky.

Then anger took him. His blood boiled and supernatural strength willed his body to his feet. Tear stood, blood dripping from various wounds and rips in his body. Behind him flames poured into the sky turning into clouds of black char warping the pink horizon of late day.

"Bala Te'nar Crow." Feebled voice of a woman beyond her years cawed from his right.

In an instant the ground around him ripped from its earthy roots and fell like an avalanche toward the sound. It was instinct. Like a cornered dog, he was wounded and caught off guard. The anger fueled his system beyond what was safe. Reducing his chances to actually recover from his wounds as his own blood burned the open wounds.

Stinging. Tear whirled around slapping his neck in pain while clawing at the source of pain. A small dart colored crimson from his blood. His world wobbled suddenly.

"Tulana. Ta'sath. Tulana." The old woman appeared before him. Her face cracked and worn from countless years. her body wrapped in fabric bearing runes and scribing none of which he recognized. She was obviously some native mystic.

"Bitch." He managed the word before his world wobbled again, this time sinking him into darkness. His body fell to the earth.

[Tear]

He stares at the ceiling for a while. The dusty air drifts between beams of sunlight that criss cross through the room. Then he remembers the crash, the sense of something familiar...the old hag.

His body trys to move with the same sense of urgency that just flooded his body but it screams with rejection. Slumping back down he realizes hes laying in a bed. It smells of dust and mold just like the rest of the room. Tear sighs and breathes deep, the fogs still thick in his head. The darts effects havent run their course yet. Moving his hand Tear makes a fist, tighter, tighter still, he squeezes his finger. Cringing he lets his arms flop back down to his sides, weaker then a baby blumgar.

"You've come home." That same voice...

The old woman stalks silently through room toward him. Her body passing through the beams of sunlight the peek under the cracks of the window sill. They dont break...she blocks them but the sun still shines as if she wasnt there.

Again Tear feels it. The first time was just before she showed up after the crash. His blood begins to boil he can feel it. Hes hot to the touch the sheets of the bed begin to smolder, letting snaking trails of smoke to spiral into the air.

"The wards do you good Ta'sath." She reaches out letting a bent and jagged finger nail scrape over his skin.

Tear glances down to his chest where she touched. Tribal patterns cover his body, from his neck down over his chest, shoulders, arms, waist and thighs. Since he was a child he has had them.

"What have you done to me!?" The anger fills him again burning away the remaining toxin the dart had enjected. The fog clears his mind but any sense of reasoning is set a flame in a torrent of anger. He moves like a coiled serpent, springing at the woman. A mistake. A small wink from her weathered face sends Tear screaming into the left wall of the room with a very audible crunch.

His anger fades along with his strength both being replaced by a wave of nausea. A moment to catch his breath. Tear lays still, choking in the sour air.

The old woman approaches again, her foot steps yield the sound of jangling beads and charms that drape over her body in an elaborate fashion. She runs the same finger over Tears skin again, this time it's cool. The runes covering his body are no longer glowing just cold and charcoal black in his skin.

"Welcome home child." The old mystic smiled stealing years away from her face.

Confusion bubbled like cheap champaigne in Tear's inebriated mind. He actually preferred being slammed into a wall and left alone then to have to deal with all these...questions? Or were they answers that he had always looked for? Maybe they were lies. Where the hell am I anyway?

His body shook with muscles that made promises for sore days to come. Struggling to his knees Tear glanced up, she was still standing there, her head crooked to the side with curiousity. Wait. What the frell? She called me Ta'sath. How would she know. Maybe she wasnt lying.

"Where am I?"

"Home." She said frankly with a hint of irritation at having given this information already.

"No thats not what I," He sighed, "I mean where is home? What is it called?"

She grinned. "Dont you know?"

Tear glanced around the room. Not for the sake of finding something familiar but for some sort of weapon to club the old hag with. "No."

"This place is called B'lath." She paused again watching his eyes for any sort of recognition at the mention of the name, she found none, "On Iridonia."

How the frell could that be considered my home? "Your mistaken." Tear cringed before struggling up to his feet. "As you can clearly see," He ran his finger through his hair," I do not have any horns. So this cant be my home."

"Dont be so ignorant young one. But there is truth in what you say. I do not know where you came to us from but you did call this home once. Come child ill tell you a story." She smiled again. This time turning and heading outside the room.

Tear flicked the crack his body had made in the wall. "Hell...ive always enjoyed a story."