What Lurks Beneath the Sand [SanctifiedSavage] [M]

[SirAlahn]

Zipartas allowed her to finish her reply without interrupting. Her unfinished sentence and glance away was not lost on him, and it did give him a slight sense of satisfaction to see that she did not seem particularly pleased with this situation either. Practical, certainly, but he could guess she'd wanted to be bound to something or someone like him about as much as he had wanted to be connected to her. In that sense, at least she was suffering too.

That was some balm to his pride, if nothing else.

For now, he didn't offer for her to lead. If she was going to demand he do what she wanted, he had no intention of helping her along with that as though they were friends. They most certainly were not. So he remained where he stood when she didn't either.

Sharply though, he did echo, "Court?" Whether she would answer him or not was another matter entirely, but he intended to get as much information from her as he could. At least with her around now, he would have a more reliable way to learn things about the world that he had woken into. It told him something too that she would have to figure out what her next step would be. Clearly this had not been her intention when she'd arrived.

It pleased him too, even if in an off-handed way, to think that she had underestimated him. She might still do that again.

[SanctifiedSavage]

Bytta glanced his way when he inquired about the Court, but she didn't elaborate. Some knew about the different Courts fae held, others didn't. If he didn't, she wasn't going to be one to enlighten him. It the very, very, very unlikely event that her death did not destroy him as well, the less he knew about the fae like her, the better. While she did fully believe that what she had done would likewise be his undoing, Bytta wasn't going to be taking any unnecessary risks. She'd not been taught to be so careless.

So, she turned and gestured for him to follow. Zipartas didn't have to, of course. There was a radius of the Binding, and eventually he would be forced to follow. A leash that would ever tether him to her, so he could not run away and would have to go wherever she went regardless of his desire to do so. Whether or not he learned that lesson now didn't particularly matter to Bytta.

Her steps soft and silent, not even disturbing the sand she moved over, the fae picked her way out of the ruins and toward the entrance that had been excavated to get in. Her things were right where she'd left them and the sun had started to dip below the horizon. Though she could not see in the dark, being a fae born of the day, she didn't exactly need to. Her faint light enabled her to see, should the moon light not be bright enough. Of course, that meant she'd have to leave some part of her exposed to the rapidly cooling desert air. Determined still, she leaned down to pull on the desert wraps she'd traveled in and heft on her pack. It took her a moment to orientate where an oasis might be - her sense of such things thrown off by the constant presence of Zipartas now itching at the back of her mind. Like a headache that didn't hurt, knowing where he was seemed to stifle a lot of her other senses. It didn't make it impossible for her to know where to go, or have her sense of the natural world, it was just... difficult.

After a long moment of looking around and staring off in the distance, Bytta pursed her lips and eventually picked a direction that felt right. Or as right as things were going to feel now that her life was all manner of messy.

[SirAlahn]

Well, if she wasn't going to tell him what she'd meant, he'd simply resolve to learn from someone else. Unless she intended to completely keep him away from anyone else on the plane... that thought soured his mood even further. Were there any truly remote places where no one would go? There were always hidden places on any realm, but he was no longer aware of current events on this one. Whether or not there were spots of wilderness, he didn't know.

Granted, his own 'tomb' had lain undisturbed for a very, very long time.

When she moved out of the ruins, he didn't follow right away. She'd said he was bound to her, and he could feel exactly where she was and how far as she walked off—but that didn't necessarily mean he had to trail after her. Would such a simple loophole be enough to evade her? Even if he couldn't harm Bytta herself, and even if she might always know where he was, he might be able to get enough of a head start that she would spend all of her time chasing him, not near enough to inhibit him any more than she already had.

If nothing else, he still had his analytical mind. And if his long life had taught him anything, it was that nothing was absolute.

So saying nothing, he didn't move either—testing the leash to see how far it might go.

[SanctifiedSavage]

She really didn't expect him to follow right away. Such a thing would have been too easy. Though her hearing was rather good, she didn't really expect to be able to hear him tailing her either. Figuring he might be a little petulant, or petty, she didn't look over her shoulder to see if he was following her either. Instead, she adjusted the wraps on her and simply followed the direction she had decided to follow. He'd really be upset if the leash cut off his access to the door and he had to start digging through the ruins to get to her

Sure enough, Bytta didn't have to move far. The Binding was a dynamic, almost living thing. As though sensing his obstinance, the pull on the leash came pretty quick and rather hard. Much like when he'd been suspended over her, like steel spider silk, there was a painful pull through the nerves of his body. Around his neck, through his spine, down his arms and legs. It wasn't so much he was forced to walk, more that an invisible, searing painful force drug him through the air. He could either allow it to continue, feeling as though invisible razor wire was cutting through his veins, or he could move. As every fiber of his body screamed for him to do. Move or be pulled. Move or he'd collide with the ruins wall. Move or he'd be smashed against brick, and sand, and find out just how insistent and undeniable the Binding really was.

Bytta didn't feel anything and she didn't know the extent of the pain he might feel. All she did know was that the Binding would keep him within a certain radius of her, and from harming anyone as he had been unable to harm her. How it achieved such a result didn't really matter to her, in the end. Better he learn the limits now, early on, so they could establish quickly how they would be dealing with one another.

[SirAlahn]

Even as quickly as the binding had taken over before, Zipartas hadn't expected it to hurt this badly. The one preventing him from hurting her had been distinctly uncomfortable, a choking and throttling sensation that pulled at his spine just as much as his throat. But this was drastically and startlingly different, an agony that sparked through him like a bolt of lightning. It was enough even to pull a shriek from him, a vocalization of mingled rage and pain as he was dragged closer to where Bytta had gone. It was quite clear this binding would pull him through the sand itself if he didn't bend.

Zipartas ended up clawing against the crumbling stone of the ruins, focused for the moment only on getting away from that pain. That it drove him closer to her made him angrier, but he couldn't think with so much overwhelming sensation at once. It had been a long time since anything had harmed him significantly, and this was more painful than just about anything else he'd experienced—comparable only to the first few of some long-ago transformations before he'd become as skilled as he was now in adopting forms unlike his own.

His thoughts only cleared once he was close enough to her that the binding no longer punished him for being at the end of his tether. There was dust and sand on his clothes now, which he scowled at and brushed away with his long fingers. But still he didn't linger as he had previously.

At least he hadn't dropped the things he'd been carrying.

He hurried his steps to eat up some of the distance, moving closer so that the binding wasn't a hot press of agony lurking just at his back, but he didn't move any closer than he absolutely had to—brooding and hating Bytta with every fiber of his being.

[SanctifiedSavage]

Just as when she'd left, while Bytta trekked across the rapidly cooling desert, she didn't pay any mind to her now tethered companion. Her confidence in the Binding she had cast was absolute, as had her confidence been in that she would be able to banish him. Bytta was not a fae of doubts or worries. Things would play out as they would, and she would deal with things as they must deal with. When it came to her powers, few they might be, she believed wholly in what she could do. There simply wasn't room for doubt, as that was the very weakness that would get her killed and set the monster free.

Feet barely stirring the sand beneath her, she ate up quite a bit of distance despite how small she was. Natural landscapes, even ones of such a harsh climate and variance as a desert, didn't bother her as much as it might a mortal. Her faint light cast off from her hands and exposed face as the sun dipped below the horizon and washed the dunes in moonlight. With not a cloud above them, Bytta didn't bother stopping. She would sleep whenever she finally reached the oasis she was aiming for. This did mean that she ended up walking, quick and in a straight shot, through out the whole of the night and into the lightening sky of dawn.

Another might have thought the cluster of trees in the distance a hopeful mirage, but the fae could scent the trace of water and leaf in the air. She was near. Though Bytta was tired and her tiny pack of essentials seemed to have doubled in weight, she hadn't slowed and did not until, just as the sun was starting to crest the horizon and the desert was beginning to heat up, they arrived.

It was an oasis, but it was by no means one that would likely be marked on any map for large caravans. Three desperate trees with slender, bleached trunks rose up, just a little taller than the monster she'd bound the night before. Their leaves were slender and provided very little by way of shade. The sand gave way to hardened rock around a small spring that wasn't even big enough for Bytta, small fae she was, to bathe in. One thirsty mount would've consumed all that had bubbled to the surface in one go. It muddied some dirt but remained, mostly, clear while small, floating clover and tiny while lilies gathered around the bank of the oasis. Cacti clustered on the farther fringes, not needed to be so close but benefiting from the underground spring water.

It wasn't much, but Bytta was thankful for it none the less.

With a heavy sigh, she dropped her things at the base of a bleached trunk and knelt on the hard rock to dip a hand in the warm water. A couple mouthfuls and a splash on her face later, she sat back to rest a moment. She'd need to set up her small shelter, but... for a moment, she just wanted to sit.

[SirAlahn]

One small favor in all of this was the fact that Zipartas didn't tire easily. A weaker monster might have ended up being dragged across the sand over the course of their trek; granted, a weaker one likely wouldn't have needed this kind of binding anyway. Bytta would have been able to simply put him back to sleep or banish him in this case. But as angry as he might be at her and what she had done, at least he wasn't exhausted by the time she stopped and he no longer felt the edge of the binding like a threat behind him.

When it didn't move any closer for some time, he took a while to explore the boundary of his leash. Out in the open now, and not pushed forward by Bytta's movement across the dunes, Zipartas could more clearly determine just where the border was. If he got too near to the edge, he could feel the prick of the magic against the back of his neck, looming with the promise of pain like he'd experienced before. Not keen on experiencing it again, he didn't test his luck by stepping too far away.

But it did give him more information about just how far from Bytta he could wander. At least the radius of it appeared to be symmetrical—a giant circle of where he was allowed to roam.

Eventually, though, he got bored of that when she still didn't move in any drastic way. Finally, then, he stalked closer to the oasis itself, looking over the small pool of water—barely larger than a puddle wetting the sand—and the few sparse trees that only barely rose over his head. Annoyed at it all, he did crouch near the edge of the water to drink some of it from his cupped fingers. It tasted bad and was warm, but it was better than nothing.

Even something like him still needed water.

He watched Bytta then, green eyes glittering in the growing light of daybreak, to see what she would do next.

[SanctifiedSavage]

The small fae wasn't worried about where Zipartas - the monster - might go, or what he might do. She was quite confident that he wasn't going to be doing anything he shouldn't and there was only so far he was going to make it. Which meant she only had to worry about her own condition at the moment. Before the sun could climb too high up in the sky, she needed to prop up the shelter. While she was a fae, and could certainly tolerate conditions far more severe than a mortal might, that didn't mean she wanted to bake under the sun. The small, bleached trees with the thin limbs would help shade her, but she'd be far more comfortable under the small shelter she'd packed for herself.

Ignoring Zipartas once he had returned, Bytta returned to her small pack so she could start setting up for the afternoon. Most who spent time in the desert wouldn't bother traveling during the heat of the afternoon. It was far too hot, too bright, and Bytta planned to just sleep through it. The shelter that had been packed consisted of several rolls of lightweight, gauze like fabric and slender, but sturdy bamboo poles that she could arrange in whatever formation she needed to shade herself. It was only tall enough for her to lay beneath but it protected her fully.

Once it was propped up, Bytta shrugged out of her traveling clothes. It was going to get really warm. This left her in the delicate cloth fae usually wore - a chest wrap and short, fine silk shorts. Yawning, she settled under the cloth.

Not once, during this entire process, did she even glance at Zipartas. He'd figure out what he wanted to do with himself during the sunshine and do it.

[SirAlahn]

All things considered, Bytta outright ignoring him was probably the one thing she could have done to make him the angriest—beyond directly mocking him. As arrogant and narcissistic could be, Zipartas' temper rankled at the idea that he was so easily disregarded. Like he didn't matter. Like the significance of her difficulty in binding him meant nothing. She might have succeeded in the end, and had now dragged him across the desert, but he was no minor creature to be looked over.

He studied her as she set up her shelter and undressed to rest, and felt his ire stir even more. When he'd gathered supplies from those he had killed and consumed, Zipartas hadn't bothered to keep any of their makeshift tents or shelters. For the kind of traveling he'd had in mind, he wouldn't have needed them; in the monstrous form he'd had previously, he simply would have burrowed beneath the sand to insulate himself both from the heat of the day or the cool of the night and rested there, hidden from any who might otherwise stumble across him.

Yet as difficult as it had been to retain that shape once the binding had been put in place, that no longer seemed like a viable option. It would not truly be rest, if he had to keep some part of his mind active the entire time to keep the shape. And the idea of ruining or dirtying the clothes he now had by sleeping beneath the sand was simply unthinkable.

Of course, he fully intended to trade them in for better, more refined garments as soon as he got an opportunity to. If Bytta ever gave him one. But for now, he didn't relish the idea of ruining the few nice things he had.

Someone else might have just swallowed their pride and sought some form of compromise. But that kind of thing had never been his way. And as long as he had been asleep beneath the ruins of his own cult, Zipartas didn't particularly relish the idea of resting again so soon. Particularly not around someone who was so fully his enemy.

In the end, he sacrificed one of the other few pieces of clothing he'd brought among the things he'd gathered, spreading the robe over an area that would be at least somewhat shaded underneath one of the trees, and leaned his back against the thin trunk when he sat. While Bytta slept, he would think, and plot, and amuse himself by determining what of his magic he could still access during the binding. It would be important to know if Bytta's magic would prevent it all, or only things that would aim to harm her.

[SanctifiedSavage]

The Binding didn't mute his magical capacity, but it did make it difficult for Zipartas to cast anything that was potentially destructive. Like there was a thick fog over his thoughts or the necessary actions required to do such things. It wasn't something that he could work at or wear away with time. It existed because Bytta existed. Just like the barrier. It wasn't something to be chipped away or a weave to be frayed, over the course of time. It was an ancient Binding that was as solidly constructed as the faewyld itself.

Bytta slept soundly. While there were so many concerns she had and an unknowable future - what in the nine hells did she do with the monster now? Where did they go? She couldn't figure out any of that if she wasn't well rested.

The heat of the day was as bright and oppressive as any desert noon. Only marginally better around the oasis where the bleached trees created some shelter over the small pool and those beneath their branches. It was an incredibly rough time to try and sleep through, but Bytta as fae managed. It was only as the sun began its descent into the evening that she woke. Bright pink eyes blinked open and she rubbed at her face. Throat dry and almost raw, she made her way from her small shelter and back to the small pool.

Reflexively, she looked toward Zipartas. Not because she wasn't sure he'd be there, but because she wasn't sure what they should do now and it was about time they started wandering off to figure that out. First and foremost, though, Bytta wanted out of the damn desert. So. That first. Ideally without running into too many people. While she knew he couldn't hurt them, that didn't mean he couldn't terrorize or terrify them. Best to wait until he was a little more agreeable - however long that took - before she went in the vicinity of people if it could be helped.

Once her throat wasn't dry, she sat back on her rear and regarded him. "So." The first word she'd said to him since leaving the ruins. "We're going to leave the desert, up into the plains, and... " Well. That was as far as she'd gotten. Depending on how they'd gotten along at that point, she'd adjust her course.

[SirAlahn]

During the time she'd slept, Zipartas had run through many of his favored spells, and even some more minor transformations just to see if he could still do them. It pleased him to see that his magic hadn't been completely bound—the fizzled spell he'd tried to cast on Bytta had concerned him far more than he would have ever admitted to her, or anyone else. But all the other known aspects of the binding aside, it seemed that his abilities in that sense hadn't been hampered.

Or so he'd thought until, glancing in the direction of her tent, he'd sought to ignite one of the narrow trees nearby.

It was a spell he'd used often in the past, and knew well. A simple thing—destructive, but not utilizing much power. It was more about just creating the flame that would then perpetuate itself. But though it was one he knew, one he remembered using, had known by heart... the gesture he'd been about to make faltered, and the magic slipped away from his fingers.

How had that spell gone, again?

Renewed anger gripping tight in his chest, he tried another:  this one to shift the earth violently beneath Bytta's tent. And when he couldn't remember that one either, he aimed it at a different place, intending only to see the ground crack and the sand slip away beneath, with nothing to do with her. But though he could visualize it, could feel the magic just at his fingertips, his mind went blank again.

It had to be her doing. Unless the long centuries of sleep had robbed him of all his wits, but Zipartas didn't think that was the case. He'd been bright and keen and in possession of all his faculties as soon as he'd woken in the ruin; it made no sense that would be any different now.

The only thing different was her.

He spent the rest of the time testing the further limits of the binding, learning what magic it considered too dangerous for him to remember well enough to even use. Restless, he even burned the energy to half transform his fingers into claws, digging marks into the sand and imagining it was him tearing through her tent, through her flesh, to reach her heart and eat it whole.

There had to be a way out of this.

Zipartas glared balefully at her when she finally did emerge from her tent again, watching her as she moved to the small pool of water and drank. When she spoke and then trailed off, he smiled at her in a way that was both distinctly unpleasant and without humor. "And then what?" he asked, waspishly. That she didn't even have a plan for what she was going to do with him just irked him all the more.

[SanctifiedSavage]

It was entirely childish, but Bytta scrunched up her face at Zipartas when he asked her and then what. Because he damn well knew she had no idea what to do with him. Her entire plan had been to put him back to sleep.

Instead, she was stuck with him and, until she was destroyed, he was stuck with her. So, her eyes narrowed a little in annoyance and she crossed her arms to consider. It'd probably work out best if she just built some little hovel in some stretch of woods where no one would ever go and she could just... tolerate him until some natural disaster swallowed them both up.

Time certainly wasn't going to kill them.

Bytta leaned forward for one more drink before she stood up to gather her supplies. No point in wasting good travel temperatures. Without saying another word to him, she eventually gathered up her things and just started drifting north. The idea would be to cover as much ground as she could until the temperature became unbearable again.

That meant a lot of walking until noon the next day.

As before, in the early morning she started to look for some manner of cover. A rocky outcropping just before high noon served as her shelter, where she set up her tent to further protect herself from the sun and heat. It was definitely miserable, but it'd do for now.

Wordlessly, Bytta went to sleep.

She hadn't checked nearby to see if anyone else had sought refuge from the desert sun.

[SirAlahn]

It shouldn't have surprised him that she didn't answer his question. She hadn't seemed to have much of a plan beyond preventing him from wreaking the kind of havoc he craved—whether that was because she genuinely didn't have one, or because she didn't want him to know it, Zipartas wasn't sure. But judging by the expression she made at him before moving to break camp, he'd guess it was the former.

How annoying.

Nevertheless, he was helpless but to follow her when she moved on. The excruciating experience from the day before had made that clear enough, and he had no desire to repeat it. As stubborn and spiteful as he could be, Zipartas still didn't enjoy pain. He would endure it for a cause, but the sheer mindless obedience it had sparked in him was something he didn't care for. This problem would require a more finessed solution, he felt, rather than throwing himself at the walls of his 'cage' like a wild animal. It didn't seem like he could simply break Bytta's will with that kind of relentless assault. This wasn't a binding she had to maintain—something that was simply in place once she had cast it.

Another annoyance.

When she made camp again, still without really acknowledging his presence, Zipartas watched her until she disappeared into her tent and then simply walked away. She'd know the direction he was in, he presumed, and probably how far away he was... but judging by the explorations he'd done previously of his mobile prison, Bytta likely wouldn't care if he roamed within its confines.

He didn't get far, though, before he sensed something interesting. Promising, even.

More difficult though it was now, he'd adopted his favored monstrous form just to prove to himself that he still could. It took a concentrated effort, but it was more convenient for moving around under the desert sun than his more humanoid one. But with the focus it took, it meant he wasn't paying as close attention to what his senses were telling him. He'd reached the cliff edge of another rocky outcropping before the wind shifted and he caught the scent of human from below.

Peering over the edge, Zipartas' eyes glinted bright emerald green as he spied the small camp, a huddle of tents in the thin shade less than a mile from where Bytta had set up her own.

Would their screams wake her? Would she sense that he was up to mischief? Either way, he didn't care. Almost gleefully, he slunk forward and picked his way vertically down the rock, claws digging against it and showering the tents below with chips of stone.

For the things he had in mind, even that mild warning wouldn't save them. They wouldn't be fast enough to reach the edge of the binding before he was on them, even if they knew he was coming.

Less than halfway down the modest cliff, he braced himself and sprang—landing on his clawed feet, taloned hands tearing through the canvas of the tent to get at the morsels inside, bladed tail poised to strike at them as soon as they were visible. But though his sharp fingers rent the cloth easily enough, another unseen barrier made them skitter off the surface of his would-be victim's skin, casting heatless sparks as the magic of his transformation met that of the binding. The human below him shrieked, and he howled right back in rage, lashing out at their belly with his tail and thwarted yet again when it glanced off as though the man was wearing impervious armor.

Damn her. Damn her for ever being born, and for keeping him from what he wanted.