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Norani gasped and gurgled as something slashed across her throat. She could feel the warmth of her blood running down her belly. So much blood. Too much. Her vision was already fading to black, so quickly... What had even happened? She couldn't even lift her arms to slow the bleeding or try to do anything to save herself. This was to be her end, she knew it.
The sun was streaming through her fiery orange hair, as she laughed, her cheeks flushed. Her slender fingers tucked her curls behind her pointed ear, casting her gaze over. Behind her, the crystalline blue waters of Ounokt Nora, the reeds and cattails reaching for the sky as her voice carried on the winds.
Norani gasped, the canopy overhead filling her field of vision. Confused, her hands scrambled touching at her neck. Nothing. There was no wound, no blood, nothing. She pulled herself upright, sitting with her legs splayed out before her, finding herself staring at the wild pig still stuck in the mud, its eyes glassy and dead.
Just what was that vision she had? It felt so real. She had felt the flesh and the muscles tear apart, she remembered the feeling of air moving through an unfamiliar hole in the throat. It happened. It felt just as real as anything else she'd ever known. Her finger touched something sticky and she looked down.
Blood.
Old blood, upon the blade of her chakram, left there from when she cut the pig's throat. At the thought, she cocked her head curiously at the dead beast. That couldn't be a coincidence could it? Norani reached for her aether, pulling it through her Animus rune, grabbing at the newly gained pig form.
Except that totem wasn't there.
Her eyes grew wide as her aether searched invisibly for that which wasn't there. Her mouth hung agape, tears filling her eyes. She had experienced the death she had inflicted upon the pig, because when she had taken its form, it wasn't a copy. a mimic like she had originally thought it worked. She had formed a bond with it. An intimate bond, one built of life, not of the pain and death needed to make a totem. And when she had slain the pig, she had shattered it, and her rune made her feel that pain in retribution.
She crawled over on her hands and knees, large tears falling in the mud she was wading in, as she wrapped her arms around the head of the great creature. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Norani wasn't sure how long she held the pig in that way. But it was getting late and she had no desire to stay out here after dark. It was too dangerous too do so. She still had to take the poor beast home, she couldn't let something she'd slain go to waste like that. But the thought of eating its flesh sent nausea roiling through her, quickly replacing the hunger that had been there the entire day.
Norani reached out to the elements, softening the mud around the pig by adding water, while making water flee from that beneath it. She did this bit by bit, slipping some of the water, carrying the earth with it beneath the corpse, hardening it. She kept at this low cost method until the boar was free from the mud, laying upon a harden patch of dirt. Norani sighed, closing her eyes so she didn't have to look at the mud and blood soaked slash across its throat, a hand rising up to check her own, just to be sure.
She then took control once more of the earth beneath the beast, carving out several rounded, dense sections. And she began to roll them, and the beast rolled over top of them. Norani paused this for a bit, happy that it worked, and went off to fetch her chakram and relieve herself. Once that was done, her and the corpse began rolling their way back to camp.
After an hour or so of travel, and learning how to make the water more buoyant for the corpse in the mangroves, she and the broke through the tree line, coming out near her and Yeva's home. She didn't see Yeva anywhere, but that wasn't unusual. Yeva often tended to wander off on her own, exploring, reading her cards, going for a swim. Norani smiled, she could have dinner cooking at least by the time she came back.
Not that Norani would eat it. More coconuts for her, it seemed. Norani pondered how she would string up this creature to clean it. There were no trees in camp with branches capable of supporting such a weight. She looked up and down the beach, studying the palm trees. They were uniform in shape and coloring, though she did notice that the thing that seemed to set them apart was the curvature. Some were straight, some were not. Yeva had a favorite over yonder that had a curve that was perfect for lounging in.
Norani looked back up at the nearest tree. It was pretty tall. Maybe she could bend it to hang the creature. She fetched her rope, tying it around its shoulders and coiling it through its hind legs in a type of cradle, then ran the two ends of the lines together. She stuck the loop in her mouth and pulled her aether through her first and oldest totem in her rune, envisioning her intent. Her neck began to grow and grow, sending her head skyward, stretching her out like the giraffe that was her first form. It was quite a disorienting feeling, being so far from the rest of her body. Soon she stood over the palm, and tossed the loop over the fronds.
She pulled her neck back down to how it was supposed to be, then grabbed the lead line she'd set in place. She pulled, first tightening the cinch around the tree, trapping its fronds against it, then pulled the second line, which starting the pulling of the pig skyward. But after its haunches were upright, she wasn't strong enough to get the line to move any further. Brow furrowed before she remembered how she learned how to sink in water. Grasping high on the rope, she enmeshed the closest section of rope with the weight of the heaviest stone she'd ever tried to move. The rope crashed into the sand loudly, yanking the pig up into the air.
Norani was about to cheer in success, before she felt a drop of blood fling up, striking her in the face, reminding her of what had truly happened here. Sobering up instantly, she grabbed her knives, and started the process of opening it up to let it drain out. The organs would make for a good stew.
Once the pig was cleaned and draining, the organs in a nearby pot of water waiting to Norani cut off its strangely colored tusks. She remembered how her magic didn't seem to work near to them. She held in one in her left hand and called some to dance around her right. She wriggled her fingers, always loving how the wind tickled and caressed so gently and playfully. Then she cast the little wind toward the tusk. As it approached it dissipated, dispersing until she had no grasp upon any of it.
Curious.
Still holding it, she called to her Animus rune, sending the aether into both hands. She willed them to bear the spots of her giraffe, a common tactic she used to camouflage herself. Her right hand adopted the brown speckles, but her left hand refused. She could feel the aether in that hand, but it didn't seem to want to do anything there.
Norani wasn't sure what she would do with such things, but knew that they would have some use. She set them aside, looking at the little basin she had formed in the sand for catching the blood draining from the beast. She knew that creatures could feel pain, could feel fear. Everyone knew that. She knew that from Ruvaf, she knew that from many animals she'd come across over the years. But this connection that she'd had, even brief, had been so powerful, so vivid.
Norani was disgusted with herself.
Just how careless could one Orkhan be?
She threw the tusks down in the sand, angry at herself, angry at being angry all the time, angry at being sad and stupid and lonely and longing. She let loose a loud scream, the winds around her whipping up sand in all directions. She screamed and she screamed and she screamed until her lungs burned and she couldn't get any more noise out. She stopped, rested on her knees a bit, and caught her breath.
Then she glanced back up at the strung up pig and sighed, it would be a shame to let it go to waste.
