Nanophlogiston chapter 35

[mc776]

Fires crackled in the distance, but she preferred the dark.

Undead-Dragon stretched herself out under her tent on the beach, not caring that her head and tail each extended an arm's length or two out of it: there was plenty of fresh, slimy bog-moss where she lay to keep the sand off. She gazed thoughtlessly into the gentle burbling green of the great freshwater sea before her as howls of victory-celebration echoed alongside howls for the dead amidst the fires further inland. A gentle fresh breeze blew east towards the water, towards the tiny lights of Not-Entirely-Worthless Village the Second a day's swim away on the other side.

The Naked did not swim. It seemed to be some kind of primordial aversion to standing water that they either had in common with the Worthless or imitated them in. The raiders had made a fatal tactical mistake when they fled the forest along the coast: pursued by the slayers' warrior and battle-virgin (technically their subordinate Seeker and Chief Hunter by the villagers' standards, but nevermind those administrative details), they took no heed to their flank when the villagers swam up to them and tore them to pieces. The remaining few, less than twenty, surrended unconditionally when they saw their fleeing compatriots explode one by one into flaming wreckage under the hunter-slayer's death-wand.

Besides clothing and tools, one of the great discoveries of the "coloured" peoples was their bodies' long-forgotten natural affinity for water. Indeed the slayers had already given the race of the Children of the Worthless a nickname that was the name of an animal native to their homeworld's impossibly vast waters, those desolate and empty leering wastes that, if Daughter-Of-The-King's memories could be trusted, made their own seas seem like rain-puddles - rain-drops - in comparison.

That these stone-cold killers from the stars had nearly wiped out these shrimps and numerous other species in the course of devouring them was a small nagging concern that would have to be addressed later.

She projected her mind into one of the battle-virgins she had assigned to the slayers' camp. A sudden curiousness had overcome her to see how and what such beings ate.

Their seeker-warrior, the big red one with the claws, he'd explained that the shining stone skeletons were actually garments protecting them from the elements. House-Made-Of-Needles was already looking at him now: indeed he seemed to be telling the truth, his skull-like headpiece resting by his side as the fungous soft mass underneath took to consuming some object in his similarly-textured many-pronged hand.

He was eating a fruit. A fruit from their country hidden in the stars. It was oblong, its flesh a bright yellow-green that made her think of wine. Its skin, crudely split open and peeled back, shone like water - just like the slayers' "garments" - and was covered in strange markings almost resembling glyphs. It crinkled under the slayer's tentacles like dead leaves but did not break. A small pile of similar skins lay near the skull.

"It is a wrapper, Chief Battle-Virgin", Many-Discarded-Stones' voice spoke in House-Made-Of-Needles' (and thus Undead-Dragon's) head, "just as we keep our provisions wrapped when we travel. What appears to be fruit-flesh is a synthetic mix of what we can only describe as roots, bones and meal. You so eagerly unleash what you do not understand."

She let out a low, ugly growl that shook her tent. "We are encamped upon a battlefield. A battlefield that we have won. You may stand at ease - Meditator."

The Meditators were still prickly around her after she'd publicly pulled rank to override their chief's directives. Weeping-At-The-City-Gates himself had not even spoken to her all evening. She tried not to harbour any offence: they were supposed to be the thinkers, and they would have plenty of time to think through and realize she was right. This was clearly a combat matter not diplomatic, she had full authority, they won with minimal casualties. She did nothing wrong.

She'd seen enough. She dismissed House-Made-Of-Needles and withdrew her mind back to--

Another mind in her tent. Ancient. Synthetic. Old and proud, the degeneracy of nobility in peacetime left to rot in the slime and dark...

Her huge, predatory heft immediately blacked out the moon, the stars shifting around the shadow of her tent as it flapped gently back to earth. Claws! Stingers! To arms! The wand really is the Tyrant--

Wait! Not yet: it was speaking with another, and the aura of this other was clear enough. She did not think it beneath him to hide his aura and make up a ridiculous story of being a disembodied alien unnaturally preserved in a magic wand, but the Tyrant would never stoop to pretending to be talking to itself to maintain such a lie...

The voices stopped. Undead-Dragon remained still and watched the wand. It, of course, did nothing.

No one said anything. Crickets. The moon kept creeping up the sky. Undead-Dragon eventually realized that she had been blocking the whole time. She was about to let it down just enough to call for backup...

You so eagerly unleash what you do not understand. No. She understood. And now was the perfect time to demonstrate it.

She relaxed her block without saying anything. However this meeting would end, there was no going back now; but she felt no fear in this.

Glorious-Army's stammer gave lie to his name. "So, uh, Chief Battle-Virgin, I guess you probably have a lot of questions to ask me..."

A dark, dusty, ineffable, all-too-familiar voice joined him. "Looks like we've been spotted, mon frère. Hello, child."

Comments

[mc776]

This piece brought to you by the following prompts:
1. Colour: Chartreuse
2. Emotion: Relief
3. Animal: Leopard
4. Lines from poem or song: Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle too / Never returned to the world they knew,

In other news, this character design is so evocative to me of the Ellobius setting it's not even funny.