Abandonment Issues [Open]

It was a big relief that her mercenary cohort wasn’t entirely out for the count, Celeste found it rather helpful he was able to do his part to get him over to the lift. She wasn’t usually fond of being made into a human crutch, but the situation didn’t really call for any prideful nitpicking at inconveniences, many though there were. She took a minute to catch her breath, doing her best to tune out the permeating sounds of the cavern slowly filling with a warm invitation to Otherworld. She made to swallow, her mouth was rather parched and dry by this point – a rather cold refreshment was sounding positively delightful about now. A pity the heran decided to pass on that drink, but if he was right, it might possibly be waiting for them later.

It was more pertinent to focus on the task at hand, getting out of this place in one piece, and with any luck she wouldn’t be forced to leave behind the wounded merc. Celeste had to admit, there was a good chance she’d have never made it out of the last cave without his help, and there had been the assistance with her tedious search when it came down to it. She may have had her own reasons for wanting him alive, rather than leaving Fukushu to a similar fate as his victims. It wouldn’t do anything to bring back the swordsman that abandoned her at the outpost, but she couldn’t very well do that in turn this wounded man in turn.

The very notion that she was doing the right thing left a rather sour taste in her mouth, the witch rather repulsed with her own behavior over the last week. Who was she turning into, someone who actually cared about others? Was that fledgling protector buried deep beneath all that pain and hatred finally trying to surface again? The comments over the beast and its likely fate broke her contemplation, Celeste turning to observe the creature, as it did its best to avoid the slow gathering ring that would take the lower elevations of the cave. She wasn’t one to take pity on anything, but ever since returning from that trip to Konats, there was no denying the potential stirrings of old feelings underneath that cold exterior.

The beast appeared rather helpless with the way Fukushu would paint the circumstances, real though they were. Celeste gave the shaft leading above a glance, knowing he was probably right, there was no feasible way the creature could squeeze through such an opening with the lift still operable. The sound of hissing fires, the protesting beast, and melting gems persisted. Celeste let her gaze falter to her feet, starting to feel rather overwhelmed with the pressure she was suddenly faced with. It would be easier to just give up here, accept their fates, and welcome an inevitable embrace into eternity beneath the shades of that wretched tree in Hell.

Things were looking a little hopeless at the moment.

The witch offered a sigh to their predicament, offering the beast another glance as she weighed the options again. It was rather large, as was the heran for his sheer brawn, and it wasn’t a certainty that she’d be able to carry both forms without some type of side effects. The beast gave another whine, this time more a whimper as the fear began to crack in its voice. Was it really fair to any of them that they should die here? Was it deemed by the unseen guiding hands of fate that they should meet their ends in this of all places, of all times? Celeste could very well just spare herself, only to be greeted again by a consuming loneliness on a strange world. The witch would turn back to Fukushu, that confidence in her features renewed again.

”Can you stand? I may have an idea to get us out of here.”

TWC:(+657)11,861
Fukushu

The witch would bring two fingers to her lips, and pierce the air with a sharp whistle for the Saiba-beast, reaching out to it mentally in an attempt to speak with it. The beast would cower at first, before it gave a worried look at the molten treasure seething in moats around them. She would ascertain a single word in the process of trying to touch its consciousness: scared. The blond did her best to console it in its native tongue, trying to reassure it in a slow approach that she wasn’t going to try to harm it. The beast continued to cower, recoiling away from the witch even as she closed the distance between them on a growing hill.

Celeste would reach out slowly with a palm in an attempt to touch its face, it snapped, missing it by inches. She would flinch and pause, before trying to shush the growling creature as she made to try again. The skin was rough, weathered, and rather dry for something that looked as if it belonged in a swamp. Growling continued for another few moments, Celeste doing her best to try to calm it for all the chaos that ensued around them. A few gentle pats against the side of its head would see its neck droop, allowing the blond to climb upon its back after a graceful hop.

The unlikely duo would then stomp their way over to the lift. There came another thundering crack from above, as another jettison of lava would come forth near the lift. As a molten waterfall was vomited from the earth above, the weave of its flow would come into contact with part of the lift’s frame. There was a creaking protest as the metal would start to bend and hiss, a sudden crunch as the lift would shudder inside the steelwork around it. Celeste eyes widened concerned for what might happen if they didn’t get close enough in time, her heels digging into the beast’s ribs despite its protests.

”Quickly!” she would yell as the creature gave a large leap toward the heran’s position. It would right its flank about quickly, per the witch’s instruction to provide a seat to land on. Celeste meanwhile turned her attention forward, back to the minimalizing free ground they would have as the cavern began to fill even quicker.

Please let this work.

The girl threw her arms wide after bringing them together, yelling something indiscernible in a language her companions would barely recognize. The air across the hill would split violently, a surge of shadow would aim to consume the world around it like some incredible arcane singularity. It was their only chance, and once everyone that was coming had climbed aboard, Celeste would guide the beast forward with another great leap into the darkness. An all-consuming coldness would be waiting for them through this portal, surrounding by crystalline emptiness where the light of the world behind them would fail further on. The promise of certain death would begin to nip at the corporeal forms of those who did not belong here, could not belong here. Suffocation threatening to set in, the slowing of the blood, the heart, the dimming of the soul.

As all would seem to come to an end, light would greet the traveling party abruptly, the promise of a late afternoon warmth filling the witch’s lungs. The Saiba-beast would collapse on sand, threatening to hyperventilate as it choked for air, the witch tumbling uncerimoniously across the ground. She would come to a stop several yards away, motionless, her form would begin to burn with an eldritch umbral fire which seethed into the air before evaporating. The girl didn’t move, much less made to stir, for all anyone might suspect – Celeste was dead.

PL:52,000 |Antisense: OFF
-Celeste uses Voidwalker to provide Fukushu (should he accept) a dangerous path to safety
TWC:(+630)12,491
Fukushu

The girl would only move per the physical draws made by the heran in his attempts to move her, turned to face the sun, her skin was exceptionally stark and pale in comparison to her prior condition. Breaths were so shallow they barely warranted a rise in her chest, invited in and out through the nose in a subconscious habit, all the while Celeste would remain oblivious to the ongoings around her. There was no ability to discern where they were, who managed to survive the trip, or how badly the spell had affected any but herself. There was an overwhelming silence around her presence, almost as if death really had taken her. She did not even feel the weightlessness as she was carried and placed atop the creature, nor the churns of its momentum as they began to set off toward an unknown destination.

Celeste had fallen into a fleeting place between a dream and a coma, an uncertain limbo where time appeared not to exist. The dead and living walked as one, rested as one, in an abstract black and white nightmare of what could easily be discerned as West City. She walked alongside those she had lost, friends and family, through the shades of a public park. There were birds chirping, but they all sounded like ravens. The trees became leafless when she turned to look on the path behind her, the buildings rendered derelict, blackened near hollowed windows. Familiar faces motionless in white as they stood like manikins unable to hear her shouts as she called to them.

The plastic parts of the people mounted her way, and as the witch made to seize a path forward, she was greeted with the sight of a familiar face beyond the crowd. It was that friend she set out to find, from where she couldn’t recall. What-what was his name again? The blond stood there in the silence of this place. Why wouldn’t he turn to face her? Why can’t he look at me? There was a disturbance in the wind, she turned to face a sea of black taking to the sky. At first it was smoke, then it became ravens, their cries would fill the void. Silence once more.

Celeste turned to face him again. He was gone.

Onward the creature marched, deeper the girl drifted.

TWC(+390)12,881
Fukushu

The park in monochrome had deteriorated, shadows racing across physical features of the buildings and trees like ink bleeding through plain white sheets. The witch would look down to her hands, covered in the same umbral void, unable to tell what it was or where it had come from. There was a cold in her breast, it swelled to overtake the warmth she thought she was feeling. The substance on her hands would drip to the street, into the cracks, where it would spread like a rapidly growing collection of veins through the asphalt. Celeste made to run as fast as she could down a street that began to collapse the further, she went, the pavement rolling like breaking waves into an abyss she tried her hardest to escape. There at the top of the precipice to this gaping void, sat crouched someone – were they a hero, what was their name?

Their eyes...

They burned like fire, narrowed on the girl who only continued to fall.

A vibrant brilliance of blue behind them against an impenetrable black.

Eyes like fire.

All went dark as Celeste reached out, the figure turning away from her in disappointment.

Who-?

It was the last thought to cross her mind.

All was silent, all seemed gone. Had the void finally taken her?

...

The silence was broken by a quivering breath, the sound of steel against porcelain chimed in the distance. It was incredibly faint, but the girl was certain that she heard it, like a bell against a blizzard on a hard snowy night. She heard it. It chimed again; she looked around in a fervor for the source. Again. And again. Each time her restlessness grew, each time she could feel a greater sense of panic set in. That was until she heard something else, it was indistinct at first. The chime again. That blasted chime! Celeste grit her teeth at it – she loathed it, hated it, if only for the insufferable amount of agony it caused her not to know where it came from. That other sound came, clearer than before – enough that she came to realize it was a low mumbling of something. It-it was a voice. Who was talking to her though?

”H-hello?” she called out weakly, her voice rasped, weak like a whisper. The blurry individual in her heavy eyes would tap their spoon against the steaming cup they held. Something akin to ”Rise and shine,” might have been heard, though it could have easily been wrong. Nothing seemed right, she didn’t know where she was. An orange glow filled the room behind this figure, there was something furry covering her mid-section – she felt unbearably cold despite it all. Her head tossed from side to side on a pillow, the usual weight of her hat absent as locks of hair stuck against her face with beaded sweat.

”W-Who’s there?”

TWC:(+480)13,361
Fukushu

It was all she could have done to stay conscious, long enough to be given a sip of something sitting at the bedside, it was warm, tasted awful, and had the worst aftertaste she could recall in years. So much in fact that she had coughed some of it back up, forcing their host to have dabbed her with a handkerchief before stepping outside. She could hear voices outside, her mind running wild with who the second could possibly belong to, until the last day slowly started to come back to her. There was screaming, fire, someone had come to free her at one point. The blond would look around weakly, turning her head in time as the door would open, a frail, startled breath at the sight of the unnamed mercenary.

It wasn’t clear, but he was walking. He was...alright.

The girl would offer a shade of a smile, faint though it might have been, before turning her focus back up to the ceiling. Her eyes would close contently, a shaky breath in and out of her lungs. It had worked after all. There was an overwhelming sense of relief to know that he made it out of that cavern alive. She wanted to ask about their mutual friend, but the girl was simply too weak to offer words to share. Celeste could only make to clear her throat, doing her best to ignore the lingering tastes of that bitter drink on her palette. She thought maybe the mercenary might have moved on, for all the trouble she had managed to cause him in turn. It was surprising, she had to admit, that he still stuck around despite all that had happened, as unusual as it had been.

The words broke her focus, unexpected as they were.

Celeste blinked several times at the weather ceiling and mounted trophies, before she could bring herself to turn a glance to the bandaged man. H-how was she feeling? She tried to furrow her brow over the idea, noticing that she still felt different, a lack of warmth, unusually dry mouth, a tremoring pain that would fade in and out at times.

The blond gave a defeated sigh.

”Simply spectacular,” she uttered weakly with a half-chuckle into a cough. Their host came forward to help her with another sip of the remedy at bedside, to which the girl would grimace. She stuck out her tongue in disgust after it was done, before letting her head fall against the down feathers with a groan. Celeste didn’t look at him when she said it, frail though the words sounded, but the bandages had not gone unnoticed around her acquaintance's limbs.

”I’m sorry.”

TWC:(+447)13,808
Fukushu

The conversation carried on, and yet despite being addressed several times, it felt that Celeste wasn’t there. She drifted in and out of coherence while Fukushu went over the details of the search gone awry, the adventuring all in hopes to find a lost friend that probably didn’t want her back. The blond wasn’t sure what she did to deserve to feel like this, only having wanted to show a sliver of kindness when this all started. It didn’t feel so terrible to have someone by her side again, or so she thought, the emptiness that came with being alone so often was a hard thing to stifle. It made it hard to trust in turn. Maybe that’s why she never opened up on the trip over from Earth, kept reserved as she anxiously speculated what might happen on their arrival in silence.

Celeste tried though, but maybe it was too little too late.

She took an outsider’s look at where it had all gotten her, this small desire to do better for someone else. The girl wasn’t even certain exactly why she wanted that power found so badly. Was it to better understand herself? Why wouldn’t she, when it potentially held the answers to, at times, better controlling her own magical instabilities? It nearly led that unfortunate heran to his death, herself nearly to her own on potentially more than one occasion. Another thirstful pursuit of the unknown, just as it had been with the very source that had left her broken in this stranger’s bed on some alien world.

Though she could barely offer an answer to her savior from the prior day, at least at first. It took the girl several moments to inch her way up the pillow, then raise her head enough so she was almost looking directly at him. There was no denying by her appearance that she should have been in better care, if it was even possible from what they had been told. Something was definitely wrong with her, but it was simply just another mystery in an ever-woven web of intrigue. Celeste opened her mouth to speak, but turned her focus to the doctor – uncertain whether she was comfortable sharing her answers before a stranger.

The heran had earned his privilege to some of her secrets.

”Well...I’m a witch.”

Celeste would wait long enough for the words to sink in, pulling the sheets and her knees closer to herself as she made to get comfortable, or as best as she could. She thought back on how to answer those other questions, on all the memories tied to the exploration of such a dangerous, but useful ability. It still ravaged her physical form even now, she could feel the throbs of muscle pains where her organs protested – a yearning for vitamins and minerals was abundant, as was the fatigue. She thought back to the venture with a samurai to the darkness of a mountain. The various encounters with a would-be god on his path to ascension. The battle at King’s Castle, the paths before, after and in-between on this long and weary journey.

The scarlet eyes fell from the face they tried to be brave enough to meet.

”Almost a year’s gone by, and I...can’t talk about it.”

Celeste abruptly shook her head in disagreement with herself. No, if anything he deserved the truth after having witnessed it, having endured it. The girl would groan, then make to sit up further, reasserting her gaze on the bandaged man.

”I opened a rift into purgatory. It exists where nothing exists in between things that do and do not; A place that is not a place.”

TWC:(+612)14,420
Fukushu

”In the past, I’ve only ever had to worry about myself. I...don’t know.”

It was a rather vague answer, and it pained her to have to give it, but her uncertainty about this last trip was absolute. She had never carried more than herself across the rift before, there was no telling how long the side effects were likely to stick around. The blond could only stare up at the ceiling, wrought with guilt over how this had turned out. He probably wasn’t likely to trust anything she said after that stunt, and for good reason. A weary sigh.

The bed was rather uncomfortable, whether it was attributed to the worn sleeping pad, the several animal skins beneath it, or her aches and pains Celeste couldn’t be certain. There was no way she was likely to be getting any more sleep on this thing, it was probably easier to try and stay awake even if it was proving rather difficult. She rolled onto her left side as the heran neared, near whispering his suggestion so as their host wasn’t likely to hear it. The girl gave a concerned frown, her gaze looking down the expanse of the bed to the suspicious saiyan, then to the Saiba still watching eagerly through the window. That was when she noticed something being put into whatever the man was brewing for her acquaintance, but it was hard to tell from the angle and the delirium.

Celeste would give Fukushu an agreeing nod, figuring she would much rather take her chances elsewhere, something about this didn’t seem right. She made to sit up, to look for her robes and hat, only to find the rest of her attire almost soaked in sweat, her skin clammy to the touch as she made to swing her legs over the side of the bedframe. There was a fire in her chest, almost akin to heartburn or indigestion, it was hard to make out which with how badly it burned down her throat.

The witch would make to stand, finding it a bit difficult with her fatigue, only to fall down upon a knee. She would use Fukushu as support, before her body started to quiver and shake, sights falling on the steaming up of nasty tea leaf juice she had been forced to drink. Was-was it poisoned!? She didn’t feel any different than she had upon waking, but she wasn’t really feeling better either. The host had turned in the commotion, something in his hand, though it was hard to discern as she struggled to her feet. The homeowner surged forward at them, the commotion threw the door open, Celeste into the sand outside with a yelp.

The Saiba had rounded the shack at sound of the disturbance, eyes brightening when it would see the girl trying to pick herself up out of the sand. It gave an unusual chirp to her, grabbing her attention with surprise and eventual relief at the sight of a familiar face. The pair would help her to stand, before Celeste would weakly try to limp her way back to the door, pausing to catch her breath from the exhaustion.

TWC:(+527)14,947
Fukushu