An Unexpected Witness/Is this the End of the World?(Rhi)

[Aeytrious]

Rit should have seen that coming. Using animal behavior as an analogy for the evil of sentient minds was difficult.

"I suppose my description would make it seem so," he said with a sigh, "It's a hard thing to describe. Cats are not evil because they can't comprehend the difference between good and evil," he explained, "People that do not understand you, would probably find your actions evil, when really they're just self serving for self preservation." He paused for a moment of thought, "I don't think I can describe it. You'd have to learn of it through experience. I would have to show you through my perceptions, and I don't think your mind could withstand that. You'd probably be driven mad."

He picked up the head of the woman and unbundled it. Rit used a touch of magic to clean it up. Free of grime, sludge and the smears of blood, the disembodied head actually had nice hair and a pretty face. His current self couldn't help thinking that it was such a waste. He pulled a deep purple sack from his pack and placed the head inside. Then he put the sack where Axieva had set the head.

"The sack will protect and preserve whatever is placed within it. It'll stay clean and intact until removed."

He moved into the stream, and controlled its flow to create a gently swirling pool around them. A little heat, some lye to suds the water, rough stone underfoot so they wouldn't slip; he wondered about just making a permanent hot spring here, the environment was suitable for it. He loved the feeling of the energy that flowed through water. All this contemplating evil was not pleasant. When he stepped from the water a moment later he was dry of course.

"Perhaps we should move away from this topic. I see it only going around in circles. Perhaps you could tell me about your lost eye, or perhaps your wings? Since you survived both, I wonder what the other guy looks like. And I'd be happy to answer more questions."

[Rhindeer]

Instead of answering her question, that answer only beget more questions; all she was getting from it was that evil was wasteful, or a lack of understanding, and also depended on who you were. It was a complicated subject and thinking on it was starting to hurt her head, though it seemed to make perfect sense to Rit--and also those humans she had encountered before.

The water bubbled and warmed, and she gave a surprised jolt, and then relaxed. It was Rit, clearly, and when he went in the water, she followed, convinced that it was okay. She sank down into it with a sigh. "Humans have too many words," she muttered. "Too many vague words. Why not just 'wasteful'? Or 'cruel'? If that is what is really meant..."

But she was content to let the subject drop after that complaint, and she watched curiously as Rit transferred the head from her furs to a new bag, ear flicking and eyebrow arching at his explanation. "So helpful," she said with a smile, still amused that he was taking this business so well. An odd creature he was, indeed.

She reached for the skirt and pulled it into the water with her to clean it up, and once that was done, she stepped from the water, dripping wet, and wrung the skirt out.

"The wings," she said, turning her back to him so he could see the paler scars etched into her dark skin. "They were...hm. Cut off." She grimaced at the memory and rolled her shoulders against the remembered pain. "The eye, it was lost fighting. Another of my kind took it, but I took worse." She shrugged. "She took my mate."

And therefore, as far as she was concerned, it was all entirely justified.

[Aeytrious]

Axieva answered Rit's questions with greater ease than he expected, though he had hoped for a bit more detail about the wings. He would have to ask more about that later. He looked up through the break in the jungle at the looming black tower he had created. Perhaps it was too big. They were a good distance from it and it was clearly visible. It might draw more attention than he hoped it would. He would have to check on it in a few years.

As his new companion relaxed and got clean he went to work transforming the area into an actual hot spring. He created as little as possible instead just moving things around and remolding them so that they would serve his purpose. The large stones and some bedrock in the are he crafted into the pools. He rerouted the underground water source to take greater advantage of geothermal heat and create a better flow into the pools. He pushed back the vegetation, but encouraged its growth, so that while the ground and pools were clear, a strong boundary was created. The trees grew taller and wider to strengthen the boundary, and create a canopy to shade most of the clearing, while leaving a clear view of the sky above the central pool. The thought occurred to him that the hot spring would probably be frequented by the same people that would visit the tower. Rit decided to clear the path they had tracked the bounty along back to the towers entrance. Since it was Axieva that brought him here to this spot and it was she that benefited from it first he created a statue of her in the center of the largest pool. It was not of her now though. He opened his sight to view what she looked like with wings and both eyes, without any of her scars. On top of a rock she crouched naked, reaching a hand toward the water, with her wings fully extended behind her. The life size, solid white, marble statue, stood out against the basalt and granite that made up the pools, and the detail was exceedingly fine. He hoped it wouldn't offend her that he had just immortalized her.

Rit went and sat at the edge of the pool Axieva was now in, like nothing had changed. As if he had done nothing at all over the course of the past few minutes but ponder her answers he asked another question, "do you mean took as in she killed your mate, or stole your mate?"

[Rhindeer]

Rit was just full of surprises. This one, at least, was less traumatic than the first two, but still surreal, given that one moment there was just a river, and now there was a river and some hot springs. But what surprised her even more was the statue he constructed at the center of one pool.

She froze in putting her skirt back on, staring.

Was that...her?

And she was whole.

The sight of her wings especially stirred something within her, a painful longing, and she was still staring when Rit asked another question, jarring her back to the present. She tore her eyes from the statue and blinked over at him, shaking the foolish emotions away.

"Stole," Axieva answered with a growl and an irritable flick of her ear. "And so as a thief was she punished." She looked away, back to the statue. "I never saw either again. Ah, this is stupid, these issues. They are old, passed. That, however--"

She pointed to the statue, looking back at Rit in wonder. "How did you...? It's me?"

[Aeytrious]

"It's you. The you deep in your soul, whole in every way," Rit stood and walked through the air above the water, out to the statue. He circled the statue, examining his work.

"You have no scars, you have both eyes, and your wings. You don't actively think of yourself this way any longer, but you have never totally shed this identity. It's hard for mortals to let go of the past. This will very likely, always be who you are at your core. I think the only way for you to understand evil, would be for this part of your identity to die." He ran his fingers along the stone wings, "they are truly beautiful. I had wings once. They were a badge of pride at the same time that they were a reminder of shame. I loved flying with them. That was before I knew I was the immortal and all powerful Guardian of the Multiverse. It was also long long after I was created. But time doesn't work the same for me. I shouldn't get into that, it'll get confusing." He bent in his examination of the statue, and with his fingertip, burned an infinity symbol into the outside of the statues left ankle.

"You are a beautiful creature Axieva, you are a rarity among the stars. I have come across other deer like humanoids, but not many. And even less that were carnivorous," he smiled in her direction. She appeared to be finished getting dressed.

"So what's next?"

[Rhindeer]

"Mmm." Axieva couldn't help but grin at his praise, ears perking up, and she took in the statue proudly. The statue represented her at the beginning of her life, before she'd joined the hunts, before the trouble and heartbreak. Not that she missed the her of the past, necessarily. Her wings and eye, yes, often, but she embraced the scars. They were not an ugly thing to her people, but a map of growth and survival and experience.

Either way, Rit was right. "I am a bloody good looking creature," she proudly said, puffing out her chest. "You have good taste to recognize that. Not many do, the fools. Or they are too frightened to handle me. That is fair. As far as 'what's next'..."

She nudged the bag, which held the woman's head, with a hoof before picking it up. "Zantaric is what is next. My contractor will need his proof, and I will need my payment. And you?"

Though he frightened her on some level, precisely because she didn't understand him (or understand this "multiverse" he spoke of), he also intrigued her. And as much as she would never admit it, the company was nice. Her kind were as social as humans, and being alone as she'd been, and for so long, was not natural.

Humans were difficult to socialize with, for several reasons.

[Aeytrious]

Ritousaey smiled at Axieva.

"Well Zantaric it is then. I hadn't wanted to go there this early, but I know I'll be there a few more times, since my future vision of it is blurred. Shall we?"

He waited for her to be prepared for the journey and found a suitable location for them to arrive. He sensed that she probably would not like portal travel, but the only faster way was to teleport her, and she had not liked that. So he thought of a way to make it easy on her. He summoned a door. A full stone arch with a solid oak door, complete with brass knocker and knob.

"Through this door is an alleyway in Zantaric. It will spare us the long journey, you'll get paid sooner, and it won't have the jarring effect that my teleporting you earlier did. You simply open the door and walk through. I'll be waiting on the other side for your arrival," Rit said, just as he vanished from in front of Axieva.



This thread continues here.