Best Of

Really bloody fun scene I had. There's not a lot of context, save this news post. The rest is covered here.

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PUBLIC NEWS #6582
Date: 2/26/2022 at 3:01
From: Lieutenant Tetchta V. Mesis, The Tick
To : Everyone
Subj: Crush the lies beneath your heel

The apagoge falls.

The falsehoods remain.

The Mirror cries, and your souls leak through the cracks.

Pawns in a game you never chose to play.

The derivative king stands, while the veil remains closed to us, and his power grows.

They treat you with stories, ply you with doucet platitudes. They mulct your very self from you with covinous contrivances, comforts of a cycle, a soothing lullaby sung to a lamb facing down the butcher's knife. And for what?

To temper you into a meaningless tool of their own design.

So you remain under their control.
So you do what they tell you.

Piss on that.
Piss on the Mirror.
Piss on the cycle.
Piss on the lies.

There is another way. A path of consequence. A path of Ferity. A path of Delirifacience.

BLOOD unites us.
BLOOD is our unifier.
BLOOD is our goal.
BLOOD is our power.
BLOOD is everything.

BLOOD is the key to your freedom. EMBRACE an eternity out from under their thumb.

Penned by my hand on Gosday, the 12th of Variach, in the year 501 MA.
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Enjoy. the scene. I sure did.

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Excuse me, miss?"

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "You don't know me but you made a call to the general public about freedom... and leaving behind the lies and division for unity in blood... Could you tell me more about this?"

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "I could. I'm gonna need a name, first, though. I don't like talkin' to people I don't know."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Oh, but of course. My name is Leonce."

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "'Leonce.'" The woman savors the name, repeating it slowly, enunciating, pulling a long sibilance on the 'nce.' "A lovely name. Though, it is perhaps you misunderstood me a tad. Division is a natural part of being--of will. FREE will, in fact. And free will, freedom, to be unshackled...that IS something I care about. What about you, Leonce? You must care a great deal about something, to be driven to speak up."

(Tells|Mjoll): Effortlessly, you fill Mjoll's head with a thought: "Know a 'Leonce?'"

(Tells|Mjoll): The authoritative, commanding voice of Mjoll reaches your consciousness, "Not ringing my bell."

(Tells|Mjoll): Effortlessly, you fill Mjoll's head with a thought: "Don't know if that's his real name, even. Thought I'd run it past you."

Thinking:
A ripple, in this vampire's mind. Silver curiosity dances with opal tension.

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "Ah. I did mention 'unity.' I see, now, where you got that."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Aye, there is much I care about. Some even say I care too much so that they locked me away for some thirty odd years... Took the best years of my life away from me they did. Years I'll never get back."

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "Ah. So you know what it means to be caged. All too well." A pondering, mulling over in her mind, like the sound of distant thunder. It rumbles, quiet, but resonant. "I have many questions, but I should do you the courtesy of answering yours first. It is simple: the Cycle, the lie ployed by the gods of Duiran, that we must adhere to the mandate to die, so that our souls might be harvested--this is a cage of its own. A cage for your very mind. Your soul. So that they may, once you have 'lived' this full life they command of you, be burnt to ash to fuel their ambitions. For what, specifically, they hold close to their chest. But they speak of 'tempering.' Do you know of any living thing, a thing that writes its own destiny, that is 'tempered?' We temper swords, hoes, axes--not people." A pause, as she thinks more, then returns, softly, "There is a way free of this cage they beset upon us, however."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Caged like beasts. Treated like children..." The words coil tight in his throat, leaving this 'Leonce' as a hoarse whisper wrought with contempt and budding fury. "Even as they release me from my shackles, they bind me anew with words: 'Keep yer hands to yerself Leonce less you find yerself here again'. How much are they allowed to take? Am I not allowed to care for myself? Am I not allowed to better my life? They've weakened me... taken the best from me... Tell me, miss... is there truly a way to break free of this cycle of cages? A place where I can be the sole master of my destiny?"

Thinking:
Red hunger pours over her mind, of this Vampire, but tinging the edges is a skepticism--yellow and alert.

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "I'm no good with swords but I've a will to survive. A thirst for ambition. A yearning to be free in all things."

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "There is." The woman affirms. "It, like all things, does have a price. Not in gold." A beat. "You know of costs, though, it would seem, those of a different kind. Tell me, Leonce, who caged your body? Who stole your freedom from you? And why? Tell me this, and I will give you a glimpse of the key you thirst for."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "A price." The repeated phrase precedes a moment's hesitation that gradually becomes a lingering silence between the pair, almost begging an unspoken tension shaped in the form of a question: Or another cage? When the silence stretches to a point where 'Leonce' might seem to hold no answer for you, he responds quietly with, "Some dogooders I suppose said I stole from a man south of Esterport. I only took what was supposed to be mine. I know he cheated me and so I made my own destiny... or at least attempted to."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Like I said, I am no good with swords but I've more than enough passion and ambition to make up for it."

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "." The woman basks in the silence like a lizard in the desert sun, absorbing it, feeling it, turning it over in her own mind. As the silence turns to words, she takes these, too, in a lazed quiet, effortless and poised. Then, after a time, through the aether that connects your minds, she speaks, "Thirty years, taken from you. Some never live this long, in these violent times, even. A lifetime, taken from you. And yet...I sense fear. Uncertainty." That lazed disposition morphs in the air into a rapt attention, all of her focus, such that it is over this great distance, is on you. "The cost--the cost is everlasting hunger. A yawning beast inside you that can never be sated, but with blood. You can learn to ignore it, for a time, but it will always drive you, living in you, like a splinter you can't scratch. The sun will balk at your presence, try to sear you from the earth. And those of Enorian, Duiran--all who serve as gaolers of this cage the Cycle deems to clasp around our souls--they will despise you. Resent you, your choices, and will never cease hunting you. This price," her voice, tense, focused, is barely above a whisper now, "buys you an eternity. You will see them interred in graves, their children, their children's children. You will outlive and laugh in the faces of those who imprisoned you. You will persist until the end of time itself, untouched by the Underking and his servants."

(Tells|fellow): A banal fellow tells you, "Gods above... yes! Yes! That is what I want! What I -need-!"

[[I start looking around for a place in anticipation. Fruitlessly.]]

Thinking:
Pondering, her hunger morphs into a rigid, fractal structure.

[[running around more]]

You ponder the situation.

A frown wrinkles your brow as you articulate a "Hrm...."

Thinking:
This one is conflicted.

Comprehension flashes across your face.

You say, "Of course."

[[travels to El'jazira]]

(Tells|A banal fellow): Effortlessly, you fill a banal fellow's head with a thought: "Such hunger." An amused, glittering, deep quality to the observation. "A hunger you feel now, already. A hunger of the mind. Perhaps you are ready for a hunger of the body and soul that you've never known. Very well, Leonce. In time pasts, my kind tested, spit on, beat those seeking this gift. I...go another way. If you truly seek to walk this path, find me in the ruins of El'jazira. It is in the southeast, in the searing Mhojave Desert."

A banal fellow yells, "Hello?"

[[begins searching for this doofus like damn sir stop yellin']]

A banal fellow yells, "Miss Tetchta?"

[[bich I am LOOKING]]

In the desert before an oasis.
The sun beats down oppressively upon the land, banishing any moisture beneath its rays. The ominous silhouettes of three dark menhirs stake out a bloodied offering ground here, sanctified to the Sun Drinker. With his arms crossed protectively over his chest, a banal fellow quietly observes his surroundings here.
You see exits leading east, west, and northwest.
[HINT]: A banal fellow seems particularly alert.

You can see the following 2 objects:
"shrine278012" a shrine of Tanixalthas.
"fellow2742" a banal fellow (alert).


l fellow
At first glance this man might be easily overlooked and utterly forgettable - from the unkempt, common mane of dark hair atop a slightly pudgy head to the soft, almost lanky limbs that carry him. Bland ears. Dull eyes. Boring nose. Not even the fleeting illusion of athleticism attributed to his build at certain angles is enough to leverage the man out of mediocrity. The only exception to the banality of the fellow is the gradual peppering of gray in his mane that betrays his senility.

You have emoted: Tetchta enters, clawed hands resting on her hips, dichromatic eyes resting on a banal fellow immediately. "Lucky the desert is mostly empty, lest you attract half the continent with your blaring," she says with a feral grin. "Well, we see each other at last."

As you arrives, a banal fellow is taken aback by the sight as he slowly uncrosses his arms. Dull eyes trail over your form with a mixture of morbid curiosity and fear. "A-ah, yes. I suppose I hadn't thought about secrecy..."

She is a wise Azudim vampire of Imp heritage and is a monumental woman, standing taller than a fully-grown troll, with musculature to match. Her build is that of a warrior, seasoned and well-trained, at the peak of physical fitness. An apex predator. The skin covering this colossal womans muscles is a vibrant, violaceous purple, and every visible inch from her neck down is covered in tattoos. Ink fights for room on her flesh, and while many designs stand out here and there, just as many seem nonsensical and inscrutable, blending into a swirling mess of text, flowing lines, shapes, and ritualistic scarifications. Long, sharp, raptorious claws the color of darkest obsidian tip each finger, trimmed somewhat short but invariably as sharp as razors, and they are polished to a mirror-like shine. Two long, goatlike horns extend toward the heavens from the side of her head, sharp and ridged--dangerous. Her eyes are a dichotomy, twin contradictions: her natural eye, her left, is black, a singularity that sucks in everything around it. The right, a prosthetic, is like a burning sun, a smoldering hunk of blistering emberite, glowing angrily even in the most oppressive darkness. Inky hair to match her left eye falls about the place in loose curls down to her chin. Her face is angular, narrow, sharp, and she is wearing a coat of black lipstick and eyeliner, an island of feminine beauty in this otherwise towering mass of strength. When visible, her teeth are pearly white and sharp--like cats teeth, perfect for piercing and slicing. Behind her is a long, leathery tail. Falling to the floor and nearly as long as she is tall, it's thick and muscular, more like a python with a mind of its own than a tail. Arcs of blue-white lightning surround her in a crackling nimbus, revealing the Sun Drinker's blessing. She is suffused with the fervor of the Warlord, carrying His blessing.

(smoldering in her right eye socket) : a blazing emberite eye
(frilling the septum) : an exotic nosering of ornamented gold
(defining the lips) : a sleek emberite lip ring piercing
(snaking up the tail) : savage crimson and black tail dath
(swaying gracefully from an earlobe) : a graceful earring of ruined emeralds and pearls
(inked on the left side of the neck) : a tattoo of a crossed halberd-and-hammer 'X'
(cosseting their figure) : a kagamine-cosseted gown of cerulean gamzafar
(clearly visible on the bosom) : a three-headed hydra tattoo
(swaying hypnotically from their person) : a shadow-slick chain tethering a twilit nightshade
(clinging tight to violet skin) : a pair of sheer spiderweb stockings
(carrying them to lofty height) : ornate ebon boots with kagamine spired heels

You are forced to close your eyes for a moment in the harsh glaring light.

Nervously rubbing away the sweat at his wrists, a banal fellow says to you, "A pleasure to finally meet you, miss."

You have emoted: As tall and imposing as this woman before a banal fellow is, all tattoos, muscle, and height, it is clear, even now that the blaring desert sun presents an imposing force on her. Still, she stands, eyes narrowed. Even so, her outward disposition is a carefully practiced one: jovial, relaxed, at ease. Yet there is something off about it. Movements are stiff, eyes probing--there's a tension to her. "And you, Leone," Tetchta replies, through an impish grin, "Would you mind following me so we might shield ourselves from this heat? The winters here are hardly different from the summers."

You inspect your surroundings and express your opinion with an unimpressed "tch."

Correcting herself, you say, "Leonce."

A banal fellow begins to follow you.

Allowing a slow smile to emerge across his features, a banal fellow says, "Surely. Let's."

An ornate meeting room.
A long, low table dominates the center of this room, with cushions and pillows stacked alongside to provide floor-level seating, ideal for a large meeting. Silver jugs and crystal decanters are spaced along the table, each ringed by a collection of glasses and goblets, while trays of refreshments - honeyed fruit, sliced cheeses, flatbreads, spreads, olives, nuts - offer nourishment for any engaged in negotiations. Heavy tapestries and long rugs cover the walls, each woven to depict a range of desert scenes, from nomadic caravans to negotiations with Bloodloch to the rebuilding of El'Jazira - throughout all of this, the village's leadership is illustrated playing a key and quite flattering role, the end result a fabulous celebration of the settlement's history.
You see a single exit leading east.

You have emoted: As soon as the two are inside, Tetchta seems more at ease, leaving the blistering desert sun. As you enter the meeting room, she turns, lifting a hand and gesturing, delicately, to her surroundings. "A place once housing enemies of mine--of my kind. My city. Now their bones are ashes," she informs, her tail flicking behind her with an unspoken agitation.

As a creature of habit, a banal fellow draws his arms up and across his chest protectively. His steps are light and measured across the ground as he follows you further into the ornate meeting room. "A fitting end for those that might shackle you I'd say."

You have emoted: The woman closes any distance between herself and a banal fellow and takes the time, now, to take his measure. Eyes, one a blazing emberite prosthetic, the other like a polished marble of obsidian, appraise him. Back straight, she begins to circle around the man--as she does, those eyes seek, probe, appraising him. Wrist. Shoulders. Knees. Those arms across his chest. Ear. Neck. Back. Feet. Every part of him is captured, collated, and filed in the time it takes one to blink. "You know, more than most," Tetchta begins, something of a growl rolling in the back of her throat, "What hunger, want, need are. A man of no import, weak arms, driven by fear. And yet--" she steps closer to the man, eyebrows furrowed, "--in such a way, have something that so many of my kind lack." She brushes a banal fellow's hair with the back of her clawed hand every so lightly.

Thinking:
This vampire's mind is full of heat and hunger--red, sharp, patterns threaten to overwhelm her senses.

A banal fellow lifts his chin to follow your gaze - a false bravado betrayed by the thundering in his chest. With each passing moment his complexion glistens from the sweat beginning to pour profusely down his frame. Perhaps a mixture of fear and the blistering heat of the oasis? Despite this demeanor, however, the banal fellow finds his voice and states, "Being driven by powerful impulses can be useful if one allows themselves to be free in all aspects. To fall freely upon instinct and not be hindered by the shackles society thrusts upon us. If I wish for a drink and have the means to do so, I should have it. Why should anyone willingly yield their freedom?"

You have emoted: As she circled the man, her countenance turned severe, reflecting the intensity of her focus. Jaw set. Eyes driven. Yet at this response, a smile tugs at Tetchta's lips, pulling them up, revealing the very tips of her glistening fangs. "I see you blather when you're nervous, Leonce," she observes, resting her palm on his shoulder. It is strong, heavy, though she does not squeeze. A simple gesture, her body on his, as she towers above him. "I must warn you, my little thiefling, that I am not being poetical. You WILL hunger. FOR blood," as she says the word 'blood,' that grip on his shoulder tightens--barely. It's faint, more of a twitch that zips through her muscles, contracting them. "You will be more beast than man, particularly when the hunger takes you. You will desire nothing more than to drive your teeth past the skin of the first neck you see, and pull the very vitality out of it. A heat--" she shudders at the idea. A lewd, lascivious reveling. "--Pulsing, alive, will fill you. It is," she leans down, resting her lips near a banal fellow's ear, so that she might whisper, "Unnatural."

A shudder ripples through a banal fellow from crown to sole as you narrows the proximity between the pair. It is not enough to merely hear or know the words being uttered but truly -feel- the vibrations so close to invoke an enthralling yearning in him. A near peaceful acceptance... "Theatrics a-are of no concern to m-me, miss. I am determined to shape my destiny. To know that which has been denied from me." A banal fellow cranes his head towards you in an effort to look towards your in hopes of searching your eyes. "If violence is the way to true freedom then so be it."

You have emoted: Those painted, atramentous lips of Tetchta's curl upward as that hand upon a banal fellow's shoulder slides upward--it's gentle. A caress, even. There's a delicateness one might expect not possible in such a brutish creature, as her claws trace the skin of the man's neck and fingers lace in his hair. That sad mop of his, grey, weathered, itself drained of vitality of youth, might warrant disgust and dismissal from a woman of her stature, and yet she handles him tenderly. There's an overfamiliarity in her proximity, her touch, her everything. The fingers tighten in his hair and she pulls her head back, to look into a banal fellow's eyes. Those withered, tired things. "Last chance to flee, my Little Thiefling," she whispers, her face close to his.

Any semblance of doubt that might have been in a banal fellow is drained away in finality as he maintains his stare unto you. Lost yet found in those two mesmerizing windows into your being; one as pitiless as the abyss and the other a searing anchor that bores through Leonce like a molten spear. Flee? Escape? Abandon all hope of comfort and peace? It is in your eyes that a banal fellow sees freedom and release reflected back at him. It is in those dual contradictions that a banal fellow finds a budding hunger that courses through his very being like a carnivorous virus. "No." Solemn and resolute are the words as Leonce intones to you, "Release me of the lingering tethers that bind me. Show me paradise, miss. Give me freedom."

You have emoted: A contract in the air, signed in spirit, by the linking of the eyes between the two creatures, one pitiful, the other colossal--and as the final dot is placed in that ethereal agreement, Tetchta moves swiftly, immediately, and without hesitation. Those hands in a banal fellow's hair grip tightly now, fierce, and her claws scrape his skull relentlessly. With the practiced ferocity of one who's walked the night centuries, she wrenches the man's head back, giving herself easy access to his neck and throat. In the same motion, she is upon him, fangs brought to bear, and they find their home with little time wasted. With ruthless efficiency, those teeth rip and tear their way past the fellow's, Leonce's supple flesh, and his vitae, his heat, his essence, his blood pours forth. It is as though a dam burst, as his flesh parted, and now his life, once pumped by that heart of his to keep him alive, is now pushed, instead, into Tetchta. As though instinct drives her, every free part of her moves to cling to the man's frail form--the other hand moves to grab his side, and her pythonic tail strikes like its namesake, making to clamp down on his thigh.

A motion as brutally efficient as any predator renders a banal fellow almost helpless as you descends upon him. With nary the time to react, several beats pass between them before a banal fellow is able to even muster a scream as the life blood of his being is drained away. His lanky limbs flail weakly but wild, one arm reaching up to grip the side of your face as his jaw eventually hangs slack bellowing, "Gaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhahahahahaha!" A scream metamorphosized from pain and terror into a wild fury of delight teetering on the edge of madness. Though his body convulses like a string cast and caught tight beneath the clenching grip of a gale wind, it is with a peerless yearning that Leonce clings back to you. Bitter yet sweet. Fluid yet whole. A banal fellow is well on his way to stalk the night as a creature of old. A childer to you; beast and terror made one.

You have emoted: The muscles in Tetchta's neck tense, surge, and writhe with vulgar throes as the woman devours the life that billows free from a banal fellow. The howling of pain, delight, and madness are all but lost on the Carnifex woman, as something else drives her. Deep, inside her being, something pushes. A compulsion, manifest in that feral, hungry clinging, her claws digging into the man in her grip, tail a vice. As she feeds, the man's body does the work for her, his heart pumping more of him into her. As the life leaves him, beat by beat, his heartrate quickens--a panic response, as it feels him bleed out. Less blood to move, it must work harder, to keep him alive. Or so it thinks. All this manages to do, however, is press more and more of him into her, like so many lemmings racing for the cliffside to their doom.

The last of the strength fades away from a banal fellow, his grip growing lax and soon falling away from your face until he is but a limp doll at the mercy of your grip. Dull eyes fade away with the remnants of his life blood devoured. "Gl..." No room for words. Only the dry, withering gasp of pain reverberates up from deep within a banal fellow.

You have emoted: The life moves to depart a banal fellow--another soul for the Underking's Halls, as his body's strength leaves him and takes up residence in Tetchta. A remarkable tension overtakes the woman as she clings to him, the vestiges of of his very being but a trickle now--and yet something compels her. It's as though a hand, mighty and big, were pushing her head down into his throat. An instinct, bigger than her, wrestles with her body, driving her to feed more. MORE. It is a vigorous presence, a paramount titan, a beast that lives inside her, commanding her to devour the man in her grasp. It is with a strained growl that Tetchta overcomes this force--a creaking authority struggles against this instinct as she rips her lips free from a banal fellow, sending a spray of blood and spittle into the air, the excesses running down her violet skin, down her neck, over her bosom, and staining a kagamine-cosseted gown of cerulean gamzafar. Both of her arms release the man, and she moves quickly. Her tail slithers up his frail, near-lifeless frame, holding him upright as she works her ministrations. A swift strike with her left, clawed hand--she rakes herself, her arm, wide open, like a butcher hunting for cuts of meat. Now, it is her, this tick full of stolen valor, that bleeds. The pilfered vitality that courses through her finds its way free from her severed arteries and to the floor, staining it a dark, rusty red. Expeditiously she moves, with determined focus, bringing her fresh wound to a banal fellow's mouth. "Drink," she says, in a gurgled hiss, her throat caught thick with the remains of his coagulating blood, "Drink before you find yourself gone from this world." She presses that wound tight against his pale lips, eyes focused, narrowed, determined.

The shackles of death and the Cycle are fast approaching when you brings your bleeding wound to a banal fellow's lips to which he drinks. Weak, sputtered sips aided by gravity at first that grow with a desperate bid for survival. Like dry kindle brought to flame, a banal fellow flares up wildly, more reinvigorated to gorge himself upon any and all that you offers him to sever his tethers to the old, overbearing weight of the Cycle. Veins once withered and drained of vigor now renewing with a bitter power. A dark hunger enveloping his very being right down into his core.

You have emoted: Tetchta's eyes are blazing--the emberite one, yes, but even her glassy black eye, now, has a blistering focus, a ferity, wild and untamed. As her blood, searing with magicks stolen from the living, pours forth from her into a banal fellow, the contract writ large upon the air begins to finalize, its signature drying, its agreement setting in stone. Power, brought with blood, taken from blood, given by blood, leaves her and enters the man--granting him a new life, of a sort. Tetchta stands there, a statue, as the man devours her, her tail coiled around him like a snake, tight around his torso. Watching. She watches him like a hawk perched upon a branch does a mouse scurrying along the ground.

Veins pulse and bulge as the new power convulses through a banal fellow. What was once weak and wild is now more resolute and calm - dull eyes renewed with a pitiless vigor that yields to the new strength flooding into his being. What sense of time that might have passed between the pair is lost on Leonce as he eventually finds himself tearing away from you, brought low to his hands and knees as he gawks at the ground. Calm. Waiting. Weighing the new senses enveloping and awakening within his changing form. What the changes might be as of now is subtle as the breeze - a low, peaceful calm that renders him utterly still as the grip of death. "T-this... is freedom?"

You have emoted: The woman stands over the newly-born creature, arms limp at her side--blood still flows from her gashed left forearm, staining her violaceous skin, obscuring her tattoos, and pooling slowly on the ground. "Yes," Tetchta says simply. The ferity in her eyes has calmed, though they remain fast and fixated on Leonce as he attempts to acclimate to this new way of being. "You are free from The Cycle. Free from any prison that might try to hold you. Free from..." She trails off, shaking her head, "...free from most things. Save one." The woman pauses, to rummage in her pack. She finds what she's looking for quickly, and her hand withdraws. It's a book. She throws it on the ground at a banal fellow's feet and says, "Hunger." The intimacy broken, the contract signed, sealed, and written upon the shared blood between them, she now makes to leave the meeting room, her pace brisk and determined. Behind her is a trail of blood, still flowing from her arm. "You are free to be whom you choose, but be warned: you must feed, lest the madness take you." She pauses at the the threshold, not turning to face Leonce, though she turns her head delicately to the side, revealing her profile. "You are free to join the Dominion and make pretenses of nobility. You are free to live as a wolf, lone in the wilds, feasting on any that make the mistake of crossing your way or--" she begins to walk once more, calling out over her shoulder, "When you have your sea legs, come find me. You've taken but one step into a larger world, my Little Thiefling. I can teach you to run." And with that, she is gone, leaving nothing behind save the fresh pool of her blood and the new creature, freshly reborn and alone.