Ch. 2.9 | The Ravine Within and Without
PoV: Lania
Lania sat on a sandy, ravine floor, knees against her chest. Water dripped down from above, wetting the sand and creating small pools where the sand was lower.
Her clothes were torn and dirty, as a result of tumbling down from the surface. Apparently, jumping into some deep, jagged ravine was not enough to kill her, now that she was a vampire.
Her blood had long since clotted up, her wounds knit back, her bones snapped back into place.
So all she could do was cry.
She had watched her expedition group die in front of her to a transformed vampire. It had decided to turn her into one too.
With her new needs, she had killed half a village, draining them of blood . . . She had killed people. Not even criminals or other bad people, but innocent civilians (she bet that Saif was bad, though) . . .
What did she do? Where did she go from here? She did not want to go crawling back to the vampire progenitor that called itself her “mother.” It was just some thing from another dimension, something that murdered and drank blood. It had murdered an entire village, where Lania had drained half. Although, the progenitor’s village was smaller . . .
Lania’s stomach queazed, and she threw up.
She smelled iron, she watched as the red glob dripped off her knees. She did not even throw up food or stomach acid, but blood.
She could still see despite there not being light down here. Some boon from being a vampire—a being of the night.
It was daytime though.
Anyway!
Lania could not continue like this. She could not continue as a monster, as something ostracized from society . . . was she even human anymore?
Maybe she was making most of this up. No one would notice who she was and she would be able to mingle back with humanity . . .
No. Humans were her prey now. They would not let a monster like her among them.
Humans were their own prey too, though, they way they were always in conflict with each other, hurting each other, killing . . . How was a little vampire going to shake that up? Maybe her hunger would die down after this. The stories always had it that the first feed was the worst. Maybe the stories were correct.
Still. What would be the rate of drinking blood? One human a day? Two? One every two days? Could she drink other blood? Maybe from the butchered goat or sheep?
She should have asked “Mother” about the nature of herself.
She didn't know who she was or what she was capable of. She didn't know how to contain her bestial traits.
Then she heard the voices.
Her heart stopped. Erm, it was already kind-of stopped, though, being a vampire and everything. She had last heard that reverse-beat hours ago. It seemed as time went on, she became more vampire. How long until she lost herself? Would she?
A bird cawed. These birds would not leave her alone. Two women (question mark? One was feminine with a strange, croaking rasp. The other was . . . difficult to grasp, what, exactly, but there were hints of a deep masculinity there.) spoke with each other . . . then a third, which was much higher and . . . cute? Lania could not make out their words—but they were there.
Did they know she was down here? Were they here to kill her?
If so, thank Heliux! Or Diuskel or that forgotten god or goddess or god-thing of twilight. What was gender-neutral for “god?” Was it just “god?” It might have been. Heliux and Diuskel did not have genders. Gods were above such a human social peculiarity.
Did vampires have genders?
Yeah, right? That thing had called itself Lania's “mother.” Not, like, “parent” or something . . .
Anyway!
Sand crunched, someone grunted as she moved about the dark ravine. Someone had descended into this place?
Okay, they were definitely after her.
Fear ran through Lania's body, causing her to shake a bit. Her heart did not slam on account of it being dead or something.
Wait, why did she fear this? She wanted to die, right?
Lania sighed. “I'm . . . I'm over here!” Lania called out, voice hoarse and scratchy from the crying. Her nose was sniffly.
Vampires could still cry. She was just surprised that she didn't cry in blood.
“Can you get over here any faster so you can kill me quick?” Lania's voice echoed through the ravine.
“Nope!” A voice echoed back—the one with the croaking rasp.
Lania paused. “What?” They weren't here to kill her? Why else, then?
“What?”
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. A person turned the corner from one of the branching ravine paths, coming upon Lania’s field of view.
She gaped her jaw and blinked.
This person had wolf ears and a strange eye. Talons replaced some of the fingers on her right hand—the thumb, middle, and fourth finger.
Then light flashed from above. A rumble followed. Certainly, a most interesting arrival.
And then, of course, the rain picked up, for where thunder rumbled, the clouds opened up.
The person stopped, looking up. “I guess we better hurry out—awoof—here!”
Did . . . did she just bark? Like a dog? “W-what are you?”
“I'm me—Nadiyya! Nice to meet you!” Nadiyya skipped over to where Lania sat. Nadiyya outstretched her left hand towards Lania. Nadiyya said that as if it explained anything at all. Maybe she was an anomalous weirdo.
“You're not here to kill me?”
Nadiyya grinned in a kind-of creepy, but also cute way. It was somehow mischievous, feral, and wholesome—all at once. “What'd I say earlier? Of course—mrrp . . .”
Lania's mind scrambled to try and figure out what Nadiyya was saying, and what she had said before. “‘Of course?’ . . . So, you are?”
“Inconvenient backlash! N—mreowr. Ah . . .”
Magic backlash? Is that what she meant? Was this some new type or mage? Were her words being replaced with animal noises against her will? Lania snorted. Nadiyya gave her a weird look, not quite hurt, but almost.
Thunder cracked again. Water dripped down and splashed on jutting rocks and created little waterfalls.
Lania's hair soon became drenched. Nadiyya did not look any better. Her hair, which was frazzled, now clung to her smoothly.
“You gonna get up?” Nadiyya's hand still waited for Lania to take it. Nadiyya no longer smiled.
Lania shook her head. “If I drown here, then that's good for everyone.”
Nadiyya crossed her arms and made a cute “hmph!” noise. “That's not good for me—ow. Come on!”
“What? So I can be tried by civilization and put to death?”
“Calderae doesn't have a death penalty,” Nadiyya blinked.
“Whatever. I'm a monster.”
Nadiyya's grin came back. “Then I—chirp—just have to tame you.”
What a weird line to say, what was Lania even supposed to say to that? “Your look isn't exactly selling—” Oops. Was that mean? That was probably really mean.
Nadiyya winced. Her face scrunched up, and she looked like she was about to cry.
“Hey!” Lania exclaimed. “I'm sorry! I blurted that out and I didn't really mean it. I don't know you, I'm sure you're perfectly societal!”
“But I'm not . . .” Nadiyya muttered.
Oh.
An awkward silence ensued. The rain continued to build up. A centimeter of water all above the sand. Then another.
Now she felt really bad. Vampires weren't supposed to feel guilty and all depressed . . . okay she didn't know. She just assumed.
Anyway, she really couldn't go with Nadiyya. Lania was a monster now.
“I can't go with you. I'll eat people,” Lania argued.
Nadiyya kicked a foot at the waterlogged sand. “Maybe you can eat criminals.”
Lania snorted again. “No death penalty.”
“Right. We can take . . . um. Some other city's? It could—brark . . . what's that word? D—some fancy—woof? Ah . . . Relationship between cities!”
“Diplomatic?”
“Yes! That!”
“I'm pretty sure the only places with the penalty are the warlord's territories to the southeast.”
Nadiyya shrugged. “We can work something out. Come? Aisha—hiss—good at that. She built an entire city, after all.”
“Wait. Aisha? The Aisha? Of-Jinan?”
“Yeah?”
“Nadiyya!” A voice called from above. “Come on! It's raining hard, you really will drown!”
“It will take at least ten meow—nutes before there's even a grrrr—risk, I think!” Nadiyya called back.
“Who is that?” Lania asked.
“Sanya Of-None. She's really interesting!”
Lania's brain broke. Of-Jinan and Sanya were both, like, idols, almost. Would she get to meet them? Would they protect her?
Would Lania have a place in society? How long until they toss her out? Nadiyya said that they'd work something out. Why? Why for Lania? Why did they trust her? She was a monster now. She was some evil thing to be put down, cast aside, and looted. How long until she became some completely feral thing looking for food and death?
Was that what “Mother” was like? She had talked to Lania. She had human speech. She spoke Lania's language. She obviously had emotion, especially towards the end. She had wanted . . . something. To be a mother. Monsters didn't do that, did they?
Yet, a hundred had died, between Lania and “Mother.”
Lania's brain extra-broke when a strange warping overtook the space around her and Nadiyya.
“You just threw up a time bubble,” Lania observed.
Nadiyya nodded, grinning. “The slower to drown us with!” Hey, was that a reference to a fable? Nadiyya wasn't going to try and eat Lania, would she? Well . . . Lania wouldn't mind being eaten by Nadiyya in a certain sense of the word? Erm. What?
Nadiyya did have some charm to her . . . She was rocking that strange outfit—large, baggy clothes and exposed midriff—and her personality was cute. If a little . . . uneducated? She could probably kick major behind if she wanted to, with her temporal magic. Then there was the situation with her body . . .
“You're a temporal mage. What's with the ears and stuff?” Lania gestured towards Nadiyya with a hand.
Nadiyya took this opportunity to try and grab Lania's hand. She yelped and returned her hand to herself. She wasn't going to shake those talons—she would lose her hand!
Nadiyya frowned. Then she leaned forward, hands clasped behind her back. “Fauna mage.” She returned to a more normal posture. What was a Fauna mage? She is, I guess.
The water was a centimeter or two higher now. All of it did not feel good drenching her butt.
Lania pushed herself up, legs aching from being still for so long, and from snapping back into place after being broken and torn.
“Is that—crawrk—‘I'm coming?’” Hope laced Nadiyya's voice—and the strange bird noise.
Lania sighed. “I have nothing left to live for anymore. Let's see where this goes for now.”
“Good girl!” Nadiyya chirped.
Lania couldn't help herself but flush. She . . . liked . . . that. Maybe she could get Nadiyya to call herself a “good girl” more?
“Aww, you're so cute!”
Lania felt the heat rush through her face with refound enthusiasm. She, a monster, cute? Well . . . she did not look much like a monster. Pale skin. Silver hair. Red eyes. Other than that, she was still human.
“So . . . Don't die?” Nadiyya turned and headed back down the ravine from where she came, wading through centimeters of water.
Lania followed. Together, their steps sloshed through the water, which was resistant to their movements. As they stepped, water splashed up against their legs and got them further wet.
In a couple of minutes, they made it to a steep incline, boulders and other large outcroppings of earth dotted the way up. Nadiyya scrambled up these, her hands and feet not betraying her on the wet rocks.
Unfortunately, Lania did not have the same luck. The first big rock she put a foot on caused her to slip when she pushed herself up, all her weight set against the rock via her foot. It slid, and she fell backwards. Lania yelped. Her back hit the water, then her head promptly after. Water splashed, and she soaked in the ravine flood.
Nadiyya made some sort of distressed animal noise.
Lania got on her feet, groaning and sopping wet. At least it had cleaned some of the blood off of her.
Nadiyya scrambled back down the rocks—on all four limbs—and held out a hand for Lania, not the one with the talons. “It just came to me—ow that I don't know—awroo—name.”
“Lania . . .” She took a deep breath. “I'm Lania.”
“Well, then Lania, grab my hand and we'll climb—squeak—together. I'll hold you if—caw—stumble again.”
Lania took Nadiyya's hand. Together, the two of them scaled the ravine. Lania's body ached with each step, with each grasp of a Boulder. She had drained herself much in healing herself after her original fall into the ravine, then walking around and everything for the past day. She hadn't eaten . . . and blood was on her mind again.
How yummy would a powerful mage like Nadiyya be? What was a Fauna mage? Would her blood taste like chicken? Errr, if she did have a taste, it would be wolf, cat, or raven, probably. Anyway, a dual mage was probably delectable . . .
Why was she thinking about this!? She would not stoop so low as to feed on this good individual! Argh!
Someone needed to put her down, she was the dog, not Nadiyya. Lania was the rabid monster let loose, the one who could rampage and kill and devastate. Why did Nadiyya and the others allow her to live?
“You're . . . you're making . . . a . . . mistake,” Lania panted. “Kill . . . me.”
Nadiyya shook her head. “No. How many times will I have to—ruff—it?”
Lania sighed.
The rocks of the ravine walls above opened up into the dark, clouded sky. Rain drops splashed against Lania's face as she looked up. Thunder rumbled again, following a violent flash of light.
Nadiyya took the last step needed to touch grass. She helped to haul Lania up.
Lania bent down, panting, a hand to her knee. Her other one was still clung on by Nadiyya, who refused to let it go.
“Can you feed without killing?” Nadiyya asked.
Lania shrugged. “I haven't tried. I only did during my . . . ‘initiation.’ I was so far gone that it never crossed my mind . . .”
Nadiyya let go of Lania, but continued having her arm outstruck. “Try it.”
Lania blinked. “Are you sure? No. No no no. I'm not. I can't. It's not worth trying. I don't want to drink human blood. Let's just . . . try animal blood when we get . . . wherever we're going.” Lania raised an eyebrow. “Hey, the death penalty is gone. I'm not being killed, but does that still mean I could be thrown into an oubliette?”
She did want to bite Nadiyya . . . What kinds of animal noises would she make then? Ack! Snap out of it!
Nadiyya tilted her head, retracting her arm. “Ou . . . bli . . . ette?”
“Yeah, like a dungeon? For simplicity's sake.”
Nadiyya shook her head with vigor. “No dungeon—you'll be free! Unless—mreowr—kill us all. Then maybe—chirp—will reconsider . . . but we will all be dead, so we couldn't.”
Lania let out a morbid laugh.
Two pairs of footsteps trudged through the muddy ground. A tall, strange girl (maybe?) and a much shorter girl that had no right to be that cute approached Lania and Nadiyya.
“Are we ready to head back?” The tall one asked. She idly waved around her staff, obviously bored. Lania went with “she” because that must have been Sanya. She had that uncanny voice between feminine and masculine. Her features were odd to place, as if not typically found on a woman's face—the eyebrows, nose, cheeks, all of it. Also she was tall—but tall women existed, like Of-Jinan! Though she was an exception, and not so much the rule.
Sanya wore dark purple mage robes, obscuring her from the neckline down. Her actual neck was wrapped in an equally dark scarf, which actually fit the weather now. Maybe not so much before, when it was always scorching hot outside. That changed with the tempest being gone.
A large, black, witch-like hat topped her head, as well.
The shorter girl must have been Mai. She wore a skirt, blouse, and cardigan—cavern-style. Twin braids fell from her head and freckles dotted her cute face. She held her own staff, too.
Not as cute as Nadiyya though . . . could Nadiyya be called cute? Lania did not know, was there a space between cute and hot?
Uh, why was Lania worrying about the labeling of attractive women around her? She was a hungry vampire that had wanted to die mere minutes ago (and still did).
A black bird landed on Nadiyya's shoulder, only to make a throaty caw in her ear.
Even weirder, Nadiyya cawed back at it. She communicated with the bird like it was another casual conversation. Nothing unusual was happening here, nope!
Then she gave the bird head pats and scratches. The bird shook with joy.
I need to be that bird . . .
“Envious?” Nadiyya grinned. “I'll give you a head pat or scratch for each day you continue to be with us.”
Condemn this girl!
Nadiyya squawked again, louder, looking upwards. A circling raven descended onto her other shoulder in the blink of an eye. A raven inside a temporal bubble? . . .
“I have the Anchor, everyone, to me!” Mai exclaimed.
Sanya held onto the wrist of Mai's free hand, one wrapped in bandages. Nadiyya bounded up to the two and added her physical contact with one finger.
Was Lania supposed to—?
“Come on! We need to touch her so she can blinky zoomy us over to Calderae!” Nadiyya explained.
Uh, “explained,” it didn't actually tell Lania much. She shrugged, and tapped Mai's arm with a finger.
“[Globetrot Anchor - Guild Hall]!” Mai sang.
Lania lost her breakfast (she didn't have breakfast), as she felt weird, unexplainable things. Pain, but not pain. Deconstruction of her entire body, but not.
Mmm . . . Breakfast . . . Heliux, she would kill for some blood right now.