The Winds Lover

[cetra_aeris]

"No, I haven't met them personally but..."

With a light gasp Aqua turned around and glanced about her. the water she had been slowly drawing from the air fell to the ground, nothing more than a drink for the soil now.

There was no one in sight, but she knew she had heard something. She moved towards the trail and peeked out, leaning her body against a tree so she could hide if need be. She wasn't sure exactly what she'd heard, but most of the people from Suiren stayed in the village at night, asleep in their beds. She had no clue as to what anyone would be doing wandering around the woods at this time of night.

She made a face, something between a pout and a look of concentration. She couldn't see most of the trail from where she was at, and if she was right, then the voice she'd heard was farther away than she was letting herself believe. 'Perhaps, another fluke of the water in the air? Allowing me to hear things I aught not?' She thought in wonder. She bit her lip and, with a final glance around her, she stepped out on the trail and followed it, further away from Suiren.

She had never followed this trail from Suiren before except for that once with Shuyin. And she could barely remember it, as she had more or less been fleeing for her life. Now she just hoped she would not encounter something simular to the bear in her quest led by idiocy and curiosity.

She was following the trail, but she still saw no signs of anything, or anyone. She was beginning to think she was on a wild goose chase, following her overactive imagination. She had been chided about that as a child, and she thought she didn't have problems telling what was real or fake any longer. yet the further she walked, the more she thought herself the fool.

She let out a sigh and was about to turn and head back, when she heard foot falls. They were a little ways off, but not to far. Without a second thought Aqua ran into the safety of the trees. She didn't know what the footsteps belonged to and she wasn't planning on letting them see her. Curiosity had killed the cat, and she wasn't about to let it kill her.

"Stupid... Just had to go down the trail, alone and at night. You know what's out here!" She chided her self under her breath. Then she mently kicked herself for even saying anything out loud. She put her back against a tree and slid down to the ground. She hadn't moved far from the trail, still powered by curiosity. She wanted to know what was heading towards Suiren, and even after yelling at herself for it, her curiosity prevailed... as always.

[Lady Rika]

Silk held tight to the tree, her eyes wide with fear. That creature, that cadaver thing had found her. Its large hooves just so willing to crush her to death, made knocked hard against the cold, snowy ground. She could hear its breathing, quick snorts, fog was generously floating up to the trees from the horse’s warm breathing.
‘Oh god…I have nothing! No weapon, no way of protection!’ Silk thought, saffron eyes trembling. It was getting closer and closer, just behind the tree, almost there.
‘Think, think!’ her mind raced; pale fingers shaking from cold, and terror.
Her hands gripped the tree so tightly, nails digging into the gray ashen bark, the dead husk that was the tree. Breaking off and falling head first, into the snow.

Silk tried to stop her breathing, tried to listen to the sounds of the approaching monster.
But all she heard was the dead bark of the tree peeling off at her touch.
‘The bark…the tree!’ her mind raced, looking back at the tree that concealed her body; of course, why couldn’t she think of such a thing sooner?
The horse would come around the corner any second, the tree was her only option left. Though tree climbing was rather easy for her, getting up there in time would be the problem.
Taking a deep breath Silk gripped the tree’s large body and mounted the tree. Using her thighs to push up and to her satisfaction her body was slowly but surely moving farther and farther from the ground.
“Ugh…” she grunted, as the sickly pallid tree bark soiled her fingers with waxy tallow.
When she was at least a couple feet from the ground she stopped, there were no branches close enough to hold onto. All she had were her sturdy legs and the long pale arms that clutched the tree for dear life.

A shadow came across the snow, the dead trees that abide in the small foliaged area; heavy hooves trudged across the snow, leaving lines in the snow.
It lifted its repulsive head, its one living eye glanced around, looking, seething, ardent.
The long curved ribs that poked through its gray flesh; blackened blood still oozed down its impaled eye and from the worn muzzle.
‘Its here…’ she thought clutching the tree tighter, ‘Could it get me from here?’
Silk closed her eyes, she couldn’t bear it, feeling so weak and helpless. The flames that ran through her, the power that coursed through her very veins refused to help her. And with no weapon to guard her mortal body she felt as if she was nothing more than a feeble human with nothing to give, nothing special to her very name.

The horse snorted, small yellow bile dripped from its open throat, down its chest; Silk opened her eyes to watch it. The horse walked slowly to the base of the tree, Silk’s heart thumped rapidly.
‘Don’t look up…don’t look up!’
The horse didn’t look up, merely lowered its head and sniffed the ground on which she stood.
Her shoeprints still visible; Silk’s eyes grew wide as she watched the arrow quiver in its tight chasm where that eye had once been. It shuddered as the horse tried to blink the arrow from its sheath as if it were nothing but a fly.
‘Why didn’t that kill it. The creatures brain should have been skewered, why wasn’t it!’
Silk bit her bottom lip to keep from gasping, a worrisome smile came to her face.
‘I guess that’s the only way…I won’t make it out of here alive if I don’t, I can’t outrun the thing.’ She mused, reading herself. The horse still sniffed the ground, curiously, unknowing of what was above it.
Silk let out a breath and jumped from where she clung, her safe yet costly sanctuary.
Landing just as she had planned, on the horse creature’s back.


The creature reared back as soon as Silk’s body touched it’s own. A loud roar erupted from its bleeding mouth; Silk, out of instinct reached for the crazed Stallions neck. Wrapping her arms around the greasy, gray flesh. As the horse bucked wildly, whipping its head back and forth Silk tightened her grip even more around its throat; her hands rubbing some sort of wet, slick flesh.
‘Oh god…’ she clenched her teeth as soon as her brain realized what she was touching. The open throat. The horse creatures wide, gaping, bleeding esophagus. She felt the boiling black blood pour down her fingers as she squeezed; the horse continued to buck and kick the air savagely.

Reaching up with one hand, her mind set on grabbing the arrow; with a demented cry the horse slammed itself into the gray tree. Shaking tremors throughout her body, retracting her arm, Silk gripped the neck once more to keep from being thrown off.
‘I gotta do this! I…have to!”
As the horse pulled back ready for another smash against the tree, Silk quickly reached up and seized the arrow. Her blood soaked fingers holding onto it tightly.
With a grunt, Silk begin to push the arrow in deeper. Sending small spouts of blood to go flying into the air, staining the white ground bellow.
The horse screamed in pain, and swung it head in rough circles.
“You…stupid thing! Stay still!” she screamed back at it, sliding it into the seemingly abysmal socket. But when she tried to push a third time, it didn’t budge; her hands, covered in bile and blood was too slick and too wet to move it anymore.
“NO!” she screamed out as the horse jumped into the air with an aggressive kick, feeling her lower half raise up from the oiled gray body Silk had no choice but to release the arrow and hang on. Anger burned in the back of her throat, the thing wouldn’t die, no ordinary animal would have survived such a blow. This vile thing, with its emaciated body, and bleeding core, sickened by the wind, alive by pure luck.
‘That open wound makes me wonder too…’ she thought with malice. ‘Wait…’

‘Concentrate!’ she told her mind, as the horse’s wild rampage began to slow quickly, ‘Concentrate…this has to work!’ her mind raced as her hands begin to feel alive.
“Come on!” she cried out, head pulsing with pain; soon blood red ‘claws’ spurted from her fingertips. As soon as they appeared she gripped the slowing horse’s open neck, squeezing the throat, burning its esophagus with a hungry maddened flame.
The horse let out a blood-curtailing scream as it thrashed around madly once more; the flames from Silk’s hands grew from the cries of pain. The more it screamed the larger the flame got; after a few quick minutes the horse, ragged, unable to breathe began to shiver.
With a final moan of grief the thing fell to the hardened ground. Silk let out a cry, it fell so fast she didn’t have the time to jump off.

As she lay out of breath, the skinny creature above her continued to pour out black blood staining the snow around her. Not to mention she was caught under it, stuck.
“Get off me you vile thing!” she hissed, clawing at the ground to try to free herself, “Get off!”
Soon realizing that with her small body, there was no way she could crawl out from underneath it.
“Let me go!” Silk cried out, reaching her arm up to beat it in its haggard, yet large body.
Silk continued to beat it, the side of her fist made loud pounding sounds against bone, and thin flesh. Silk wished it would just bust open but there was no way of that happening.
Letting out a sharp gasp Silk crunched her fingers together into a fist and once more crashed the bloodied hand into its back; making the corpse completely rupture. Sending boiling hot blood, and rotten guts all along Silk’s back. Her eye’s widened as the load that kept her down quickly lightened; she scrambled off, rolling into the snow to free herself from the stench and the burning.
“Oh god…what is it made of?” she cried out pushing snow onto her inflamed legs. “Hell fire?”



Silk loaded her quiver up onto her soaked back, her bow stuck out of her sling bag quite comfortably. Her body was immersed in the black blood of the creature. Her chocolate hair was clumped and stringy, small hunks of rotted meat clung to the strands.
She walked from the fields and passed the small creeks and tiny pools of water, possibly coming from the Shuyin River.
“Fil...Filthy water…probably filled with disease!” she stuttered as her feet slowly crunched along the snow, leaving footprints filled with blood. Her once pale arms now covered in the gore, her legs, clothes, and her entire body was overcome with it. Scent and all, the scent of death and murder, the scent of suicide and suffering; but she wouldn’t wash it off.
If so many animals killed themselves in the waters of her homeland, than most likely they did it in Suiren as well. She wouldn’t risk her death to disease, Silk would rather resurrect that horse creature, plagued with after-effects, and have it kill her before she went near it.
Plus, she didn’t like water, it was the element against fire so her personality was similar.

Reaching towards the ground, Silk grabbed a handful of bright, fresh, untouched snow. Crunching in between her palms, she began to rub it across her face. Rubbing the red away slightly, giving her saffron eyes back their normal, bright aura.
“Suiren isn’t far now, I can get there before it gets too dark.” Silk coughed, getting the blood taste from her mouth and then breaking out into a wild run. Her blood soaked clothes making heavy wet sounds against her body, rubbing her thighs raw from the tight material.
‘Now all I have to worry about is the river…and the mountains…and if there are any more of those things…” Silk sighed, and picked up her pace, leaving the large snowy meadow and entering yet another spellbound wood. And to her delight, she could see the mountains from where she ran. Hopefully she made it there in time to get to the other elemental, Kessler.
She hoped a creature hadn’t attacked him, though he could handle himself she thought with yet another sigh. That monster had took too much of her time and she didn’t intend of wasting anymore.