Risen From the Ashes

[Megaera]

A once proud people had fallen. Nightsisters had dominated the land for generations. They had dealt with uprisings of the Daughter's of Allya, with invasions by off world societies, and in every recorded instance always their superior strength and numbers had prevailed. - But when it was Dathomir Herself that rose up against them, there was no victory to be had. The best they could hope for was survival. To that end, the ragtag group of Sisters, Brothers and slaves that had banded together in the Cataclysm of Fire now found themselves dwelling in a cave system beneath the roots of a great mountain, far from the lands that had once belonged to the Burning Mist Clan.

The Fanged God wanted to know if they would submit to her rule, name her Mother? They might..but that was not the destiny that Megaera, Daughter of Matier, wanted for herself..

Deep in a recess of dripping stone walls, Megaera worked at the task of placing crude wooden bowls along intervals in the cave. One of the primary reasons that they had stayed here this long was that the cave provided a seemingly never ending supply of water. Not the poisoned sulphorous leavings polluting the rivers and groundwater. Fresh water, dripping down through the veins of the mountain from snows somewhere high above. For them it had been life.. Sacrifices to the Fanged God had been made, and they had stopped to regain their strength. All wanted to know what their next move would be..

Sooty, chewed upon, fingertips braced against the coolness of the wall, as the Nightsister Shaman tried to hear the voice of their God, guiding her. Or to feel the presence of the Honored Mothers who both haunted and advised her, but today, the spirits were all silent. She was on her own..

Almost.

[Tristan Alastor]

It was a bleak existence. Tristan had spent too many hours to count, now, crawling through dirt and slime. Hunting, some of the others called it, though the word was said with a heavy slap of cynicism. There was no hunting outside the cave, not in a landscape where fire and ash had made charred bones of the very prey that the tribe would seek. Rare was the chance to down some substantial game. Instead, they dined on cave larva and the other eyeless, translucent-fleshed creatures that skulked in this cool underworld.

Pulling in a slow breath to try and push down the vexation - the frustration that felt like it bordered on the kind of petulance that his old self might have indulged - he ducked into the cavern where he could feel Megaera at work.

There was water, at least. That was a small mercy, and the cool air had not yet become tiresome, after so long in the stifling heat. He watched as Meg tended to the cups, her movements slow, almost ritualistic.

"How long would he have us stay here?"

[Megaera]

Without turning, Megaera set down the larger bowl she had used to collect the drippings from the other smaller containers. Placing it atop a relatively flattened surface of stone, she wiped her dampened hands on the folds of her tattered apparel. It was not enough.. The water had been flowing constantly at first, but each time she repeated this process, less was collected. They were running out of time here, spirits will or no.

Disturbed with the knowledge, she turned to her mate and shrugged wearily. "The moons have darkened twice now since He spoke to me. I do not believe we are meant to stay here."

Leaning against the same upthrust hunk of rock that held the bowl of water, Megaera peered around Tristan, making sure they were not yet overheard. They were far from her Mist now, yet she carried it inside her being. She could feel that they were alone. "The water is running slower now. We will not be able to stay much longer. We have to keep moving. Find somewhere untouched by the fire."

[Tristan Alastor]

There was only one He that the clan spoke of. In the gloom of the cave, Tristan frowned somewhat. He had come a long way in his understanding of the Mists, of the power they concealed, but to think that a god could be walking among them? It was proving hard to wrap his mind around. The irony of that - given his background, on a world where the monarch was revered as a deity - was not lost on Tristan, but it did not make the concept any easier to accept.

He pushed a hand back through his damp, slicked back hair.

"Where can we go?"

Dathomir was as vast and unknown to Tristan as the rest of the Galaxy was. Now, he supposed, the fire had made it unknown to Megaera too.

[Megaera]

"I...don't know." Megaera admitted.

While she was no less tired, no less drained, than the rest of the survivors, she had not yet given up trying to fight for their continued survival. She needed help, from the Fanged God, from the Honored Mothers, from Dathomir. Yet, no one seemed to hear her plight for attention today. She was on her own and had to figure this out, for their people.

Crossing the distance across the floor of the cave to Tristan, she slumped against him tiredly, fully committed to hitting the cold stone floor if he let her go. "There has to be something I can do...something I am missing.", she mumbled into his chest.

A squeaking, amplified by the echoing space beneath the mountain, startled the Nightsister. Turning her face from her mate's chest toward the sound, she chuckled. "It's only a veshet.."

The Nightsister frowned. A veshet... The creature seemed suddenly more significant that a mere rodent sniffing after the leavings of the new occupants of the cave system. She watched it, intently...

[Tristan Alastor]

Ever since arriving on Dathomir, Tristan had relied on Megaera. She had been the one thing that had kept him standing, kept him fighting the face of what often felt like futility. The world and its people were so strange, so alien, to him and yet Megaera knew it all like the back of her hand. Now, to see her so drained... it was his turn to be a source of strength and comfort. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand stroking hair hair.

When a skittering creature caught her eye, however, he drew back from the embrace. He could... sense something unusual.

"What is it?"

[Megaera]

Keeping her arms around the solid strength of Tristan, Megaera continued to frown thoughtfully at the little creature. "I think... I might know something that can help us."

Finally releasing her mate, Meg rubbed at her bleary eyes and then sorted through what few possesions she carried with her, collected along the way. She found the Book, bound in what she believed was dragon flesh, and containing what spells she had recorded herself, and a few others that some of the other witches had contributed from their clans. She remembered Matier's Book containing something about the Sense of a Veshet..

Sitting crossed legged, she carefully thumbed through the pages, some still freshly inked in the last days. It seemed a desperate attempt to leave a record of their ways, should they perish. Megaera had not yet given up hope though. It was the way of the Nightsisters. It was how they had come to be, being cast out from Allya's grace they had learned to do for themselves. To survive. To please the Fanged God.. and it was He who had gifted her this tome.. maybe for this reason?

"I might be able to enhance our senses. Our hearing.. Our sense of smell. Rodents are survivors. They always find a new home when they've been smoked out, or poisoned. We can learn much from such a noble little creature."

[Tristan Alastor]

Tristan looked down over her shoulder at the book. He could almost smell the dried flesh and paper that it was made from, even standing over Megaera. The Fanged God had instructed the clan to make the book a complete record of their travels, to record in it everything that they were, everything that they learned. Tristan wasn't sure why, but in his time with the Dathomiri he had learned that they placed great value in the chronicles that the tomes became. It was another custom that he couldn't quite parse into Hapan, but one that he was learning to respect.

He crouched beside her, eyes moving between the pages of the spell-book and Megaera's face. He wanted to help. There was so much he had learned already, so far that he had come, but he still had far to go.

"Show me - teach me how."

[Megaera]

Curling backward into Tristan, she pulled the tome across her lap so that they could look together for the spell she searched for. She had promised him, she would never withhold knowledge from him, ever. Any spell she might utter, any curse she might doom someone with, she would forbid him nothing. Tristan was not her maleling, kept confined behind a proximity shield, dragged out when she fancied a tumble in the dirt. He was her equal in all things.

"It should be something like.. 'the nose of a wolf, eyes of raven..'. It would have been transcribed by one of the Hunters. They use this skill to improve their range when tracking. Which is exactly what we will do." Megaera turned her face from the Book toward Tristan.

"Rather, what you are going to do. Find clean air. Fresh water. Things that still grow green..", she explained. "This cannot have spread to all corners of Dathomir."

[Tristan Alastor]

Tristan nodded along with her words. No matter how wretched the world might seem, he knew she was right. They all had to know it, though that knowledge might have been buried beneath the bitterness and ashes. The piece of Dathomir that had been their own was gone, but they had not claimed all of Dathomir as their lands. Even before they had encountered the refugees of the other clans that had been hit by the cataclysm, Megaera had told Tristan tales of the other witches that roamed the lands, witches who worshiped other spirits or goddesses, witches who could shift their shape or would ride on the backs of monstrously large spiders. It had all sounded like fairy-tales at first, but Tristan knew better than to doubt what she said. How could he, after all that he had seen - after all that he had done?

If Meg was wrong about this, about the possibility that the fire had not touched every part of the planet... well, they had to know that for certain, too. At least then they could set about trying to leave Dathomir. The prospect of that muddled Tristan's emotions. He frowned, looking down from Meg's face to the Book.

"How should I begin?"

[Megaera]

After carefully turning through page after page, Megaera realized the spell she sought had not yet been inscribed in their Book. "I cannot see it here."

She bit at her thumb, a growing habit born the stress of all that had happened. For a moment, frustration threatened to rob her of any kind of constructive reason. Megaera did not allow that, she had too many people depending on her. Squaring her shoulders she snapped the tome closed, setting it aside for now. She had a theory, and if she was successful she would return to the Book, record the spell for future use. If not.. they would find another way. The Fanged God had not let them burn, she had to believe He would not let them perish here, wasting away to husks in this cave.

Turning to Tristan, she took his hand in her own, holding tightly to him, drawing strength from his nearness. "So I'll make a new one. When I was small.. the Honored Mother's told me that in time I would have the ability to shape spells of my own design. If that was true then I am not limited by what others have recorded before me. So let's begin as we mean to carry on. We do not fail. Right?"

Set to her purpose, the Nightsister rose, crossing to the passage out to the larger room of the cave system. It was where the other survivors, those they had picked up along the way, huddled around very small, very contained, fires in the dark. All seemed endowed with a newly refreshed sense of respect for the destructive element. She spoke in a low voice to one of the young witches. The girl crossed to one of the pits and returned with something she handed to Megaera.

Returning to Tristan, she turned over her hand revealing the lump of charcoal in her palm. With natural gracefulness, Megaera lowered herself back to the floor, before her mate. "Our spells are spoken.."

Without hesitation she climbed into his lap. "L'mai d'natha kal'daka. L'solen d'natha oreb." The nose of a wolf. The eyes of a raven. That was the core of the spell she knew as Sense of the Veshet. She would trust the spirits to know how to shape her will. Their will. Tristan was going to be put to the test as well.

"Think that. Say it. Feel it become part of you."

She crushed the charcoal in her hand. With her fingertips, she began to make a band of black across Tristan's eyes, nose, temples. All the while repeating that phrase. "L'mai d'natha kal'daka. L'solen d'natha oreb."

[Tristan Alastor]

Tristan closed his eyes as Megaera pulled her thumb over his eyelids, blackening his skin with the crumbled charcoal. With eyes shut, the smell of the smoke from the nearby fires seemed stronger and sharper than before. He breathed a deep lungful of the scent.

"The nose of a wolf, the eyes of a raven."

There was power in words. He had always known that, even as the Crown Prince of Hapes. Words could make or break that future of entire worlds, just as easily as weapons could. On Dathomir, words took on a greater power. Megaera's words had brought him to the witch-planet. Words had allowed him to touch and shape the power contained within the Mists.

"The nose of the wolf... the eyes of a raven," he repeated, the sound of his voice reverberating softly off the cavern walls, perhaps even though them.

[Megaera]

Tristan never failed to amaze Megaera with how quickly he picked things up. His mind was continually open to learning whatever she would teach him, whether it was a great or small. From the most complex spells she knew, to the most mundane of tasks. If he did not know how to do a thing, and do it perfectly, he pushed himself to master it. This would be no different. She believed that. Already she could feel the difference as his senses stretched outward, seeking the very qualities his voice quietly chanted as words of focus.

While Megaera finished darkening her mate's eyes, the traditional mask design their Hunter's wore when a ritual hunt was called, she began to call upon the magic of her people. "Nym'uer uns'aa, Dathomir. Nym'uer dosst Dalharil, Megeara.." She continued this prayer, until the flickering stubs of smoky tallow candles flared up with green light.

Ichor..

Untapped wild energy surged through the Nightsister, flowing through her from the land itself. It rose upward through the roots of the mountain, through the damp soil beneath them, into her body. Her hands turned upward, beseeching the power behind the Mist to manifest her will upon Tristan. "Belbau uns'aa l'zhaunil d'dosst ib'leua aterruce, l'Veshet. L'mai d'natha kal'daka. L'solen d'natha oreb."

The green light reacted to her words, spilling forward from the source of the candles taking form instead as tendrils of energy that slithered forward, serpentine, swirling around her chosen recipient, Tristan. "Nau'thal dosst Dalharuk, Tristan. Belbau ukta l'z'ress ulu ragar l'i'dol.."

She prayed for Dathomir to give Tristan strength. To bestow upon him the gifts needed to save them all..

[Tristan Alastor]

The flicker of unholy green light was visible even through his closed eyes. The smoke of the tallow candles tickled his nostrils, the smell trapped within the cave's low-ceilings. More than that, though he felt the power of the words. The beating of his heart was in time with the rythmic murmur of Meg's voice. I need to see, Tristan told himself, trying to project his wish and will beyond himself and tap into the ethereal power that he had experienced on Dathomir before. I need to see beyond this place.

"The nose of the wolf, the eyes of the raven," he repeated, again and again, his voice barely a whisper but his lips shaping the words until he'd spoken them so many times they were almost meaningless - as if the meaning had been stripped from the syllables so that it might be grafted onto him instead.

"The nose of the wolf," he began again, "The eyes-"

Tritan's body suddenly jerked stiff and stick. The sound caught in his throat as if he were being choked. He gasped and, with his head thrown back, his eyes flew wide open: pure white and staring into and beyond the stone.

[Megaera]

Enervated as she was, Megaera committed herself to the shaping of this spell. Her hands settled lightly on Tristan's shoulders. She could feel him there with her, not just in the body of the man beneath her, but also the impression of his will reaching out to connect with and empower her own. She was aware of it almost as though he were stretching out with unseen fingers for her. Entwining them both into something stronger, becoming one undeniable force, capable of commanding the ichor.

It was the push she had needed.

All at once Megeara's awareness of the ever present spirit world returned. Her sight returned, her eyes blazing with the same green light as the spirit ichor. The Honored Mother's had not deserted her, as she had nearly allowed herself to believe in moments of hopelessness. Magda was there now, just behind her, one gnarled hand upon her shoulder, chanting right along with her and Tristan. Behind the shade of the departed Nightsister shaman, her own spirit sisters Helebor and Avarice each had hands set upon her bony shoulders, lending her their combined strength.

The green ichor spiraled into one constant moving path. One which ran right through Megaera. Into her back, through her body and into Tristan, until it disappeared and he shuddered and went rigid. Her grip on his shoulders tightened. She watched as his head was thrown back, his eyes...

His eyes..

They were the same apathetic white as those of their Fanged God.

Trembling fingers slid up his neck, cupping his jaw between her hands. Her thumbs rubbing over his cheeks. "Tristan..."

"What do you see?"

[Tristan Alastor]

“You are lost.”

Tristan's voice was not his own. When he spoke, it was as if another voice echoed him, distant and yet paradoxically near enough to be whispering in the listeners ear. A sibilant undertone slithered under his words.

“But I can show you the way. There are places on this world that even your most revered mothers do not know.”

His head lolled forward, sightless eyes swinging towards the three, departed witches.

[Megaera]

Megaera knew that whisper accompanying Tristan's own voice. It was present in her own voice at times, when the Spirits spoke to, or through her, but she had never heard it from anyone not a shaman. Certainly not from Tristan. The spell had been meant to increase the range of his senses, and it seemed to have worked, if not quite as she had intended.

Still holding onto her mate, Megaera looked over her shoulder to the Honored Mothers. Avarice and Helebor shrugged at her. Magda on the other hand looked positively tickled with whatever was going on. It was obvious by the sight of her remaining teeth and ghostly gums. It was horrific, but Megaera knew it was smile. The departed shaman had always had a thing for Tristan. It could be a good thing, or a very bad one. Probably not too bad, as the apparition was now untwisting her ropes of hair, combing out her long spectral white locks with a bit of a cackle.

"Tristan..." Turning back to the prince, Megaera grew a bit more insistent. "What is going on Magda?", she demanded.

[Tristan Alastor]

“Come, this way,” Tristan said, as much to himself as to Megaera.

Nausea swept through the Hapan Prince as the cave pulled backwards before his eyes. The disconnect between what his body felt – the hard, damp stone was steady beneath his knees – and what his mind saw and felt was enough to throw all sorts of internal checks and balances into disarray.

The power of the spell was quick to work however, and within a moment the disorientating pull-back elicited only a deep breath. With each jump in perspective, a shallow gasp passed his lips and his mind's eye – the eyes of the raven – drew further and further out of the underground and to the world above them. The reverse-magnification continued, until he was looking down on the blighted land from dozens of feet above.

In the cave, Tristan's skin beaded with sweat at the heat he was sensing above. His hold on Megaera tightened as he looked down from his raven's eye view on the landscape. He didn't fear the great height, but instead felt a shiver of excitement at it. There was no time to indulge it, however. As his eyes searched, his other senses also called for his attention. In the cave, his nose – blacked by paint - wrinkled. The nose of the wolf. It wasn't scents that he could smell, not in any traditional sense. Instead it was... something else. Something that he couldn't quite parse into words.

[Megaera]

Magda was not forthcoming with any kind of meaningful response. Her antics seemed to imply she intended that she and Tristan would be seeing a lot of each other.

Behind her Megeara could still hear the low hum of voices talking quietly in the gloom. All that remained of their people and what survivors they had encountered, those that chose to remain with them. Safety in numbers had made them strong when less disciplined, more desperate, souls had come to take from them.

It was not the direction Tristan was leading her though. He was heading away from them. A second of indecision only, and her wrist was tugged forward by the insistent stride of her mate. This was what she had woven.

See it through... The Spirits advised.

Her steps followed the Nightbrother prince, through the darkness, letting him lead for a change.

[Tristan Alastor]

"There is a path through the stone," Tristan said, in the voice that was not wholly his own. Though he didn't know what he was going to say until the words passed his lips, from the second he did Tristan knew they were absolute truth. As if whatever the spell had conjured had not granted him some new sense or sight, but unlocked a part of his being that was previously concealed.

The cave ahead stretched out into darkness, away from the light and safety of the temporary camp they had made, yet Tristan moved with sure steps. For a heartbeat, he was in awe at himself: a child born to a life without darkness, in the endless light of the Hapes Consortium, and now he strode in the shadows without fear. He squeezed Meg's hand and as they walked turned briefly to regard her, his eyes blazing white with the power of the spell.

"It begins not far ahead. Though it is long, and though it cuts through... old, forgotten places, you need only follow it to find the sanctuary you seek."

[Megaera]

Being a Nightsister shaman, Megaera was no stranger on how the spirits could use a person as an instrument of communication. She had just not yet seen such a thing from Tristan. He had asserted a desire to learn not one, but all aspects of their ways of life. Her fingers squeezed back reassuringly. Telling him without a word that she would follow him into that darkness, no matter where it led.

Forgotten places..

Something about that phrase gave Megaera pause. Not given to silly fears of the dark, the witch knew that sometimes there was a reason behind such trepidation.

The last flickers of the torchlight behind them shone off her green eyes before that too disappeared.

And just who was this spirit...?

[Tristan Alastor]

"Do you know where it could be taking us?" Tristan asked, and for a moment when he looked back to Megaera his eyes were his own, cold water blue, a fraction wider with fear. Yet when he blinked, the fierce white of the spirit had returned and his voice was a chorus, like a dozen of himself, exhaling and inhaling at the same time.

"You must know, you who were born of the mist and shadow. You must know what lies, abandoned, beneath this ancient soil."

[Megaera]

Many things were concealed beneath the soil of Dathomir. Some had been abandoned purposefully as clans moved onto other areas with the natural course of migration. Some simply had been lost to time, remembered only in legend. The legends of her homeworld were not unknown to Megaera. In fact, she was probably one of the last left alive to know many of their oral traditions and stories, passed down from the first of their Mothers.

What they would find beneath this range would be more easily answered if Megaera had any sort of indication where on Dathomir they were?! At her best approximation they had been travelling westward away from the Burning Mists clan grounds for weeks. With Domir's light still obscured by ash, she could not be more precise. She did know a little about the direction she supposed they were heading.. To say the land was ancient was redundant, but there were ruins that dotted this landscape that were just that, ancient. Structures that predated any Nightsister, their purpose forgotten before the first of Allya's daughter's had ever roamed the land. Some such fortifications had been further built upon by the Witches of Dathomir over generations.

Some...leading into great caverns beneath the mountains! Tristan, or at least whoever was wearing her mate's flesh presently, was onto something!

So why did she still have chills running up her arms? Why did the thought of descending deeper into the caverns make the shaman hesitate?

Picking her way behind Tristan carefully, Megaera opened herself up fully to the mountains interior. Sensing. Feeling.

Determination won out over caution. They had to do this, for the survivors. There was no turning back.

"Why do you not speak plainly, spirit. Tell me, what was abandoned here?"

[Tristan Alastor]

“What is not plain cannot be spoken of plainly,” the spirit said, talking through Tristan as it walked him further into the shadows with slow though not fearful steps. The others, Tristan thought, but his impulse to turn and look back to the rest of the clan was snuffed out like flickering candlelight in a storm. The Force moved through Tristan in a way it had never done before, paradoxically both overpowering and empowering, ice-cold and exhilerating.

“Perhaps you do not have the language, the intelligence, to comprehend it,” the spirit added, and though Tristan wasn’t smiling, there was an almost mocking humour in his voice.

[Megaera]

Megaera frowned. The spell had been meant to give her mate the benefits of amplified senses, sight and hearing. It had not been meant to attract a formless specter to take up residence in him. A mocking one at that. For all she knew, it was leading them into danger..

"I have the languages of every Mother who came before me, spirit. And every banishment ritual this world has ever uttered, test me not.", she warned.

Her fingers grasped firmly around Tristan's. He had only to say the word, or give her any sign, and she would send their little haunt into a void it would not return from.

[Tristan Alastor]

Another little shiver prickled over Tristan's skin. At Megaera's touch, the spirit within him flinched for an instant, as if it sensed even a fraction of the power the Nightsister commanded. Pride and love swelled in Tristan, and he squeezed her hand. The smile that curled his lips lingered when the spirit began to speak through him again.

"There are cities beneath the surface of this world. The husks of civilisations. All but abandoned and forgotten, with roads like veins, deep and far-reaching."

[Megaera]

That did sound promising. "Take us there.", she commanded, although it seemed that was already their road.

It was so dark. The deeper they moved, the more oppressive that darkness became. Had they been walking for an hour? Ten hours? Megaera was loosing sense of time, and she was not convinced the spirit did not seek to lead them both over a sudden drop, to join it's endless roaming.

Domir's Ssussun, tlu xuil uns'aa nin. At her words, a small ball of light formed in her right hand. It lifted, and she pushed it outward, where it hovered just before Tristan. One less problem to worry about.

[Tristan Alastor]

As they walked, the ethereal light faded from Tristan’s eyes. When he searched about himself with the Force, he felt an echo of the spirit somewhere near at hand, as if tethered to their shadows.

“Did you know of the existence of these subterranean cities?” he asked in a low whisper, his voice once again his own. “Are they the work of the witches?”

[Megaera]

A grateful breath was released from her lungs when Megaera realized she had Tristan back completely. "Maybe. I don't know. There are many ruins on Dathomir, but not all were made by my people."

Picking her way carefully around a section of collapsed rock from far above them, Megaera wondered just how deep they had traveled.

"I think someone, or something, else lived here before us. Perhaps the ruins, and maybe these cities, were theirs?", she posed.

Either her eyes were beginning to struggle with the constant gloom, or she was beginning to see things. Somewhere in the space ahead of them, Megaera could see something.. blue.

[Tristan Alastor]

The more time Tristan spent on Dathomir, the more he believed it was an unknowable place. Though he had grown up in a star-system of sixty-three worlds, he felt he knew more about the Hapes Cluster than he would ever do about Dathomir, a single planet. So little of the world had been mapped, or else the maps had created in isolation and never shared with the disparate tribes that called the place their home.

He peered ahead at the strange, glowing growths clinging to the walls ahead. When he spoke, his voice was even lower than before, barely audible.

“You don’t think that anyone is still living down here, do you? Is that even possible?”

[Megaera]

The Nightsister almost halted in her tracks at the notion. Were others living down here? "Anything is possible." Who would live in this place though? The Nightspider clans were known to dwell in craggy, cliff sides and some caves, but this went a fair bit beyond that.

They were deep beneath the peaks above them now. The light she had conjured was no longer proving beneficial, so she dispelled it with a dismissive wave. Little by little her eyes adjusted to the sight before her. The tunnel that they had followed was opening up into a massive chamber. For a moment she thought they had emerged on the other side of the mountain, and that it was the night sky she was seeing, but it was not so. Rather, the ceiling far above them was also speckled with luminescence. The Nightsister had to admit it was quite remarkable.

The air smelled strangely fresh for so deep and dark a place, and there seemed to be moisture in it. Meg could see well enough now to make out the band of black across her mate's eyes, through the darkness. This was what the spell had been meant to achieve. Her heart beat a little faster in excitement.

"Is there water?"

[Tristan Alastor]

The artificial sky above them pulled Tristan’s eyes upwards and left him dumbstruck for a moment. To his Hapan eyes, the darkness was more impenetrable than it was to most, but with the magic of Megaera’s spell woven around him and the glow of the strange flora clinging to the cavern roof, he could almost see the height of the massive vault above them. The sheer scale of it… it had to be large enough to dwarf even Star Home.

Forcing himself to look down, Tristan sniffed at the air. His supernaturally enhanced sense were pulling him forward still. “Yes, I can… feel something down here.”

He continued walking without thinking, letting the intuition of Megaera’s gift to him dictate his path while he stared in wonder at the darkness.

“I can’t believe this is down here. It’s incredible.”

[Megaera]

Stepping around the wide base of a stalagmite, Megaera followed Tristan into the eerie glowing space that they had discovered. She would not have bet against the existence of such a place, but neither would she have believed it had she not seen it for herself. There was something magical about it, even by the standards of a Nightsister Shaman.

Impressive as it was, why would it have been abandoned? Megaera had a lot of questions for the spirits regarding this place, but her usual haunts seemed to want them to do this on their own. The sound of her steps changed from the crunch of gravel and rock, to a softer sound as the ground beneath them likewise changed into deliberately placed stones forming a path to follow. Maybe leading them to the cities beneath?

"It is.. There is certainly enough room."

All of the witches, plus a herd of rancor - several herds, could have space to roam down here. As well as the spiders. The only thing that troubled the shaman was the location's state of apparent abandonment.

[Tristan Alastor]

“What could have caused this,” Tristan mused aloud, and found himself imagining - quite unexpectedly - Ta’a Chume’dan as an equally empty shell. His home city was vast, populated with hundreds of thousands of Hapan’s at any one time. There were few things that could have rendered it as empty as this cavern.

“Did they leave of their own free will, or were they driven away?”

[Megaera]

They were good questions. Megaera had no answers for her mate though. She had about as much information on this place as he did. Or did she? Megaera searched her memories for any mention of the places beneath the surface. She could not remember anything specific, but she did have a sense of forboding. Like she should remember. She felt sure there was nothing from her recent memories, from before the fires. If there was anything it had been told to her long ago, perhaps as a cautionary tale to a child. Something teased at her thoughts.

There went the chills again.

Megaera would have been grateful to see any of her spirit guides then, to pry the information she sought from their collective memories, but they were still nowhere to be seen. Not too far ahead of them, shapes rose up in the blue-tinted glow. What she was seeing appeared to be carved arches, and beyond, many other structures. Cities beneath the surface of Dathomir, just as they had been promised. But...why empty?

"Tristan.. I think I do know something about this place, and I'm not sure it's good.", Megaera said, sliding one arm around his waist, as much to comfort her own nerves as anything.

[Tristan Alastor]

The half-light ahead traced strange shapes in the murk. Structures that did not conform to any style of architecture Tristan had ever seen or read about. The damp air felt thick with foreboding. Tristan mirrored Megaera, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and yet his nose drew him forward, toward the source of water that the clan so dearly needed.

“What is it?”

[Megaera]

"Something very old.."

Megaera knew how unhelpful of an answer it was, but she was trying to pull pieces of memories together. Bits of bedtime stories Matier had told her, to scare her senseless because that's just the sort of adoring Dame, she had been.

"Something big, and old.. and dangerous. An Old One.", she summed it up.

"We should be alright.", she hoped. "I believe you have to awaken them.."

The crunch of her footsteps had never seemed so loud to Megaera as it did in that moment.

[Tristan Alastor]

It was the first time Tristan had heard Meg mention an ‘Old One’. It was not surprising, however, to learn that there was more about Dathomir that he did not understand. He had only scratched the surface of his understanding of his new home, and much of its history and its culture were still shrouded to him, as if by the Mists themselves.

Tristan halted, as something about the cavern seemed to interfere with the sensation leading him onward.

“How does one awaken an… old one?”

[Megaera]

Megaera stopped as Tristan did, her blood feeling suddenly chill in her veins. A tingle of awareness creeping down her neck.

How does one awaken an Old One, Megaera?

"With Ichor.."

Spirit Ichor, such as she had just pulled out from this very mountain to shape her spell. The green fire working it's way up from below them, to flare up through the candles and fuel her will - and something else had come with it.

[Tristan Alastor]

With his arm still around Megaera’s shoulder, Tristan’s grip on her tightened, just a little. At the edge of his mind, he could feel something that he thought might be her… uncertainty or perhaps even apprehension. Yet, something cautioned Tristan against stretching his senses out any further, as he ought to be wary of what his awareness might brush up against.

“It couldn’t happen… by accident could it?”

[Megaera]

His question only echoed her own thoughts. It had not been her intention at all, but this world was in a state of change. Who could know what ancient places were disturbed and what might lurk in them?

One might. They had not chosen their path beneath the mountain, it had been chosen for them by someone. Something that she had summoned, and so it would answer her command.

"Usstan quarth dos.", she addressed the spirit, tired of it's half answers, taking command of it.

It might not be speaking through her mate like Tristan was it's personal puppet, but the shaman knew it had not left them. It was being willfully silent, letting them wander into darkness, maybe into danger.

"Tesso udossa vel'uss lu'vel'bol dos ph'. Vel'bol zhah nindol k'lar, lu'vel'bol saibhe ghil?"

She demanded to know what it was. What this place was? What was lurking unseen?"

[Tristan Alastor]

“You know what dwells here. You sense it… as it senses you.”

Tristan twisted toward the sound of the voice, but he saw nothing. Only a flicker of a shadow at the edge of his vision. When the spirit had spoken through him, he had felt an icy mantle settling over his shoulders; now, he felt that same chill almost shifting in the air around them.

“A being beyond your control, dalhar. Summon it at your peril.”

[Megaera]

Not for the first time, Megaera longed for the spirit of her mother, Matier to show herself. Why had she not come? The not knowing was almost as bad as the initial grief that her loss had been. She needed her mother's wisdom, the strongest Nightsister Megaera had ever heard of.. her own mother.. had not survived the Cataclysm..

"I am not a child."

While Tristan sought the source of the disembodied voice, Megaera used the pain and frustration that thoughts of her mother had roused, turning it toward forcing the spirit into their plane of sight.

"I am Megaera, Daughter of Matier and you will obey me. Jous dosstan!", she commanded the spirit to show itself to them.

[Tristan Alastor]

With something like a rush of air and a tear of fabric, a figure lurched forward through Tristan and into the space in front of them. The spirit, a translucent thing that appeared to be made of smoke, whirled on the pair. It had been human once, Tristan wagered, but unlife rendered it’s features strange, as if they were not a fixed thing but a reflection on a rippling pool of water. Was it a trick of the conjuring, or could Tristan see shifting glyphs scorched into the skin of it’s bare neck, crawling like insects beneath the collar of it’s robe.

“Who... are you?”

[Megaera]

The feeling of unease was so great that Megeara felt a strong urge to grab Tristan's hand, drag him if she had to. Run, and keep running until they were out of the darkness, back in fresh air and sunlight, where ancient gods did not wait sleeping. There was no fresh air and sunlight right now though. Only ash clouds, and dry air that evaporated the water from your mouth as you breathed it. And they had very little water to begin with.

There was plenty of water here. There was plenty of space. A city, several cities, could be housed in such a great space. The air was clean, and the this was where the Spirits had led them. They were staying. Even if it meant facing her fears.

"It was a servant of the Old One.." Megaera said. The knowledge of Clan Mothers and Shaman, whose remains were long ago burned in funerary fires, had been contained within her. They knew, so she knew, noting the glyphs, the robes. "..and it's already been summoned.'

'That's why you brought us here..?", she accused the shade.

Megaera could feel it now. It was subtle, so subtle she might not have been aware at all, had she not been acutely searching for the signs, the presence of it. They were already weary, dehydrated and half-starved, so the fact that they were slowly being leeched of their vitality by something, went almost unnoticed.

"Tristan... it's watching us.", her words were said low, only for her mate, but once uttered... the whole cavern seemed to rumble in response.

[Tristan Alastor]

Tristan’s hand found Megaera’s, squeezing her fingers tight. He searched the shadows for any sign that they were being watched, any ethereal pair of eyes staring back at them from within the gloom, but everywhere he looked there seemed to be only darkness. Nonetheless, he felt it, a presence, reverberating through the cavern, as if from inside of the raw rock itself.

The glyph-scarred spirit chuckled, a hollow sound. “It needs no eyes to see you, child,” the spirit said, when Tristan looked towards it with a scowl.

“As… insignificant as you are, it sensed your approach.”

“You lead us here, to it,” Tristan said, dragging his eyes away from the spectre, scanning the cavern further. Inside, he cursed himself. He had lead the way down into the mountain. It had been Megaera’s intention to enhance his senses, to allow him to feel his way to a place where they might find water and shelter. Had he allowed his will, his instincts, to be corrupted by the servant of this Old One?

[Megaera]

Even as Tristan was scowling at the shade, Megaera was already deciding it was no longer of any use. Bothersome even. Disrespectful to the one who could cast it into oblivion, but then... maybe that was what the spirit wanted. Perhaps it was tired of it's restless state.

The Shaman's green eyes crinkled in a parody of a smile. "Insignificant enough to have awoken your master."

Dismissing the spirit as irrelevant when compared with what else lurked, Megaera turned back to Tristan. She knew her mate well enough to sense that he felt responsible for their present circumstances. It was she who had cast the spell, she would argue for her share of the blame, if they had the luxury of that sort of time to indulge. They were going to have to accept that this was their path, and see it through. She believed in Tristan, and in herself.

If It already knew they were here, there was no longer any point in remaining hidden. She was no longer shy about how much magical power she clutched to her, ready to dispel - banish - or smite entirely the first thing that came for them.

It might be helpful, Megeara thought, to see this place as it had been. Closing her eyes, the memories of other Shaman and the collective knowledge of the clans they served, shuffled through her mind like pages until she found what she was looking for. Detailed, firsthand images of this city in life.

When she opened her eyes, she could see it. They were standing in the middle of one main twisting road. Wide enough for rancor-mounted Nightsister's to pass side by side, room to turn even. They were not lit, but massive braziers lined the road, and smaller paths that split from it, leading toward buildings, towers and other paths through the mountain. Megaaera understood that some of them also led to the surface. They would have to see which - if any still had access!

Completely absorbed with what she was seeing, Megaera started forward along a suddenly familiar path, taking Tristan with her. "This way..."

She did not care if the shade followed or not.