You have been taken by the Mists

Author Topic: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings  (Read 3671 times)

Amon-Si

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Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« on: July 04, 2015, 12:41:59 AM »
Chira Diams



[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MVqdYcbDp8[/youtube]

« Last Edit: July 15, 2015, 03:18:37 AM by Amon-Si »

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2015, 01:16:58 AM »
Red suggested that I write this down, get it all clear...
The dream is the same, always the same.


I wake, stirring slowly, basking in the warmth of the remains of my slumber. I stretch, my handsWINGTIPS nearly brushing the ceiling of my bedroomCAVERN.


I open the small, wooden door and head downstairs, pausing at the room with two small, sleeping figures to stoke the fire, keeping the room toasty warm, little eyes blink at me in passing before snuggling down further.

I SLIDE INTO THE SMALLER CAVE WHERE MY BROOD NESTS, A LONG BREATH IS ENOUGH TO ENSURE THE EMBERS WILL REMAIN WARM FOR DAYS TO COME AS THE EGGS SHIFT SLIGHTLY IN THE COALS.

I open the front door and head out into the street, snagging my shopping basket as I go. I pause at my door and look out into the cool morning, the people passing by on their own errands. I inhale the scents of the new day. I smile.

I CRAWL THROUGH MY NETWORK OF TUNNELS TO THE COMPLEX ENTRANCE AND LOOK OUT INTO THE FREEZING AIR, CLOUDS DRIFT BY SEEMINGLY WITHOUT PURPOSE, ON THE WIND I SMELL SOMETHING NEW. I BARE MY TEETH.

I walk down the street towards the square, moving through the sluggish current of humanity, looking at the buildings as I pass, water trickles from a pipe, slipping into the gutter and flowing away down the street away from the square up ahead, already bustling with noise and life.



I GLIDE DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, MOVING THROUGH THE SWIFT CURRENTS OF THE AIR FLOWING AROUND ME, DOWN MY SPINE AND AWAY. I WATCH THE MOUNTAIN SLOPES AS I PASS, LONG AGO EMPTIED OF ANY SIGNIFICANT LIFE. A BROWN SMUDGE APPEARS AHEAD, I CAN ALREADY HEAR AND SMELL THE SOUNDS AND SCENTS OF LIFE.



I arrive in the square, so much bustle and life all around me. I turn, looking all around, basking in the warmth and light of so many people going about their lives, and then I see her.

I ARRIVE AT THE TOWN, SO MUCH BUSTLE AND LIFE BELOW ME, I TURN ON THE WIND, LOOKING BELOW, SAILING ON THE HEAT AND SOUND AND STENCH OF THE LIFE BELOW ME, MY EYES FOCUS ON THE OPEN SPACE FILLED WITH FLESH. I SEE HER.

I/She lands in front of HER/me and for a moment we are eye to eye. I/She draws a deep breath and suddenly all is fire. The light dies away and I stand with her in the ashes of all. My heart soars with joy.



Always I awake with that feeling of joy, a warmth in my heart. All that death, all that destruction and it makes me feel... so good. Sometimes I throw up.

Amon-Si

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #2 on: July 13, 2015, 09:40:45 AM »
Tonight I didn't dream for the first time since I arrived.
It only ever comes to me when I am alone.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #3 on: July 15, 2015, 01:38:45 AM »
Really shouldn't have entered the white mist...

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9D2mvoMKLE[/youtube]

But I did, anyway...
It was mostly awful, but I learned something interesting, very interesting.
This place is not only seemingly designed to break people, but it actively seeks to do so, as if under some kind of conscious control.
I got lucky, it targeted the people with the clearest levers which means that while it might be able to watch, it cannot reach right into our minds.
We made it out, but none of us escaped without wounds... For the luckiest, they were merely physical.
« Last Edit: July 15, 2015, 03:18:53 AM by Amon-Si »

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2015, 05:17:09 AM »
*there appear to be some odd lines or smudges underneath the regular lines of text*

Wow, I'm really, really bad at keeping this thing up to date, huh?
Don't judge me, book, I didn't see you doing any of the work and I've been busy, y'know.
Well, okay, so you don't know because I haven't been writing in you, shut up.
Fine! Fine! You win.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uH-8TDe5s-E[/youtube]

So, I've kinda fallen on my feet, made a pile of friends from all over the place and I've met someone special AND nearly screwed it up immediately, but didn't, so that's good, right?
She's so kind and reserved (Until you get a few drinks into her) you aughta see her blush, seriously, cutest thing ever.
She's four times my age and still blushes!

So, lemme see... There's Zazzles, Yasz, (She's with Natham, but the guy has a stick up his arse the size of an ironwood), Keeta, Legs and Red.
Yasz and Red don't get along because Red punched Natham so hard his nose has only just started pointing forward again... gotta buy Red a drink for that...
SOON. SOON HE WILL BURN FOR HIS IMPUDENCE

Yasz is an absolute sweetheart, one of those caring, nature types. Not a bad kisser, either.
WEAK LITTLE FLESHLING, THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE DEAD WOLVES.

Red's one of those crusty, heart of gold types... admittedly he's like... 98% crust, but there's gold in there, I can smell it.
USEFUL, HE BRINGS ME TRIBUTE AND SHIELDS ME FROM FOES.

Keeta's one of those demon bloods, really excitable, everything is drama with her, but it's great fun spinning her around and seeing which direction she explodes in.
WHY IS SHE WASTING HER TIME ON THIS HALF BREED FREAK?

Legs was with me in the mists, she didn't make it out so well and I guess it still haunts her... maybe I should take her back in when we're stronger. Face it down.
BRAIN SHATTERS WEAKER THAN SOFT HUMAN FLESH. SHE IS INFECTED.

All of these people have been trying to help me with my condition... just thinking back on it, it seems kind of silly now:
I thought it would hurt, I was TOLD it would hurt, and I guess it did, because I got shot at the time... I'm not making much sense, am I? Right, okay, from the top, then.

So, turns out my dream is more of a sort of blood-memory from long ago, I dream it because I'm sort of like Keeta, but instead of demon blood, I have dragon blood in me.
At first I just wrote that off as crazy talk, stupid people just reading in to a dream, but I began to doubt a little, and then a lot and then I got really, really scared.
What if it wasn't just a physical thing? What if I lost my mind, my humanity?
WASTED THOUGHTS, YOU HAVE NO NEED OF THOSE SHACKLES.

Yasz and I had a long talk about it, it was really, really nice, I got so worked up that I kissed her at the end, which was not the –most- brilliant idea I’ve ever had and Natham was royally pissed. I couldn’t care less about him, but he did make a point about it being unfair to Zazzles and he was right, so that’s not happening again. She forgave me, I’m luckier than I had hoped to have such a sweet girl.
So there’s also this guy. A guy in grey. I paid him out once because he and his little friend were having a tough time in the crypts, but I also offered to help, then he spat on me. Seriously, spat right in my face, right there in the temple, then ran off.
COWARDS, PATHETIC, MEWLING COWARDS.

Ran into him a while later on the way back from a hunt, he took one look at me and hid in the temple, even though I only said: ‘You!’ I mean, c’mon, would an apology kill you?
YOU WILL KNEEL BEFORE ME AND BEG FORGIVENESS, AND THEN I WILL KILL YOU SLOWLY.

Then he shot me: With a gun. Some people are just… insane.

That was when it happened, a split-second as he was pointing that barrel at me, fire raced through my body, burning, tingling, it was… probably the weirdest, scariest, most joyful feeling I’ve ever experienced… rudely interrupted when the flintlock ball smashed through my plate and into my stomach.
I HAVE AWOKEN.

When I woke up I’d been patched, but… well… Now I –really- have to invest in a better skin care regime…

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2015, 07:23:52 AM »
A new dream, something I haven't had for as long as I can remember... so unexpected, it feels like reality.

I open the door, and there she is, watching me from the other side of the table. I stand, speechless, just staring at her, her red hair, her scales, her blue eyes that are now shifting closer to green. I stare.



"Seen it all, yet, Chira? Can we get the hell on with this already? Come. Sit."

I'm utterly confused and she can see it on my face, she rolls her eyes in exasperation

"Don't just stand there like a balding goldfish, woman. Come here and sit your scaly ass down."

I manage to shut my mouth, close the door behind me and sit opposite her.

"So, we need to talk."

'No kidding?'

"This situation is untenable and can't continue. You keep fighting me and you risk letting her" She flicks a bandaged thumb back into the darkness behind her "Out. We both know that can't happen."



'You're taking over my body! You're an invader. Just get the hell out of my head and leave me alone!'

She wrinkles her nose at me.

"You're going to have to grow up sometime, Chira, really. Let me spell it out for you, -finally-. I am you. You are me. That thing back there? That's us as well. You're just fighting yourself like an idiot."

I narrow my eyes at her, but I know, -know-, deep in my soul that she's telling the truth.

'Mara left me because of you.' The words somehow lack the venom I thought they should drip with, I cannot bring myself to truly hate her, not face to face like this.

"Mara left -us-. I miss her too, maybe more than you do. But her care for us was and is killing her, let it go and accept she wasn't strong enough. It's not me, it's her."

'I'm -bleeding- everywhere!'



"Change isn't a bloodless activity, Chira, you learned that when you were twelve, get a goddamned grip, why don't you?"

'How can you be such a... such a cold bitch?'

"Because I'm that part of you, now, are you going to pull your head out of your ass and work with me, or are you going to let -her- keep on whispering things at people?"

'...fine... But let's be clear, here. I don't like you, and I'll be watching you like a -hawk-.'

She smiles and rolls her eyes

"Sure you will, now... take my hand."

She reaches out and I do the same, our hands stop, palm to palm on the glass of the mirror.



I open my eyes and smile... One fight down.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2015, 04:37:35 AM »
Right... gods... okay... here we go again.

I am really, really bad at consistancy.
Some would say it's because you're an undisciplined child.
Well, thanks for that, very helpful.
I did not intend it to be helpful.
You can be a real bitch sometimes, you know that?
What you do reflects on me, I do not like people underestimating me.
Urgh. Fine, FINE, can we just get on with this?
As you wish, to call this irrelevant to me would be a gross understatement.
Your unwavering support is a shining beacon in this lightless world, Charaliamilar.
Dragons understand sarcasm, Chira Diams, stop attempting to get beneath my scales and get on with your foolish exercise in narcissism.
Alright... fine.
Be concise, we have gems to aquire for the hoard.
Yes, I know. More gems. Hush now and let me get this over with...
« Last Edit: June 06, 2016, 04:52:00 PM by Amon-Si »

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #7 on: June 06, 2016, 05:15:28 PM »
Okay... to start even more from the beginning.

My name is Chira Diams, only child of Melanie and Damian Diams, owners of the Diams stock and feed empire. My mother died in childbirth and from what I can piece together, that's when my father died too. His body is probably still administering,  controlling, plotting and scheming... but that was the day his soul died.

I grew up alone with books and tutors, learning to be a proper lady that my father could use to buy hos way into the nobility... just another piece of stock. None ever stayed more than a few months. None of them could stand it for longer.

My father was always as distant and cold as the mountains at the spine of the world. His brother, Manard, my uncle... he stopped by frequently, doted on me. I think he was the first person ever to really show me what it would be like to be loved, to be cherished as a person.

It went wrong, as these things so often do. It cost him his life and I was bedridden for most of a year as my bones knitted and the healers came and went. I was twelve. On my thirteenth birthday my father got me a book. A small thing, written for someone much younger, colorful woodcuts and awfully forced rhymes. But it was the first gift he had given me that wasn't... utalitarian, really.

I still hated him for what he'd done, hated him more than I have hated anyone, even more than Nita and Neeka after I found out what they had been doing in the dark. The book gave me something I needed, something to focus on.

It was a book about a dragon and his adventures. It was silly, it was unrealistic, it was charming, and I think I needed that. In one story the dragon helped a sad little girl to be strong and brave by making her a dragon too... I read that one until the ink was worn away by my hungry eyes.


When I had recovered fully after... anyway. When I had recovered, I delved into our library. If father could have still felt anything I would have called him overjoyed to have me out of his hair, quiet, managable. He let me buy books, send for books, beg, borrow and steal books. All for one purpose: how to become a dragon. Obviously I got more books about other things and even read some of them. We built up quite the library. I had to be careful... Father couldn't find out. He wasn't going to take my future from me. Not this time.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #8 on: June 06, 2016, 05:38:03 PM »
Eventially I pieced together what I needed. To become a dragon you needed dragon blood within you. My obsession switched tracks to our family tree, searching, hunting, breaking down the barriers to the past. I found a few odd entries, gaps, names unrecorded, children dissapeared. I dared to hope. Finally I found a book that could help me... a book of magic. The first ritual was very, very simple... well, it is to me now. Back at that time it was a mammoth undertaking.

A resonance spell. One of the most basic magics, it tells you if one thing is like another thing. You could use it to find which book a page came from or which plates were which in a pile of broken crockery.

It worked. It actually worked. I had purchased a dragon scale for my fourteenth bithday in the guise of wanting something pretty... and it actually worked. I had the blood withing me, but it was weak... so, so weak. I needed help. I needed something more.

It took another year of searching befor I found the last piece I needed. The fire seed. Hidden amongst the shelves of the neverwinter library are restricted areas with forbidden magics, but some young librarians can have their heads turned by a pretty smile and a winking eye and I had matured beautifully while my attention was elsewhere.

One night on the dark moon I broke into the library and perfoemed the ritual, summoning a fire seed. It hung in the air before me, a tiny, glowing ball no bigger that my fingernail... I took the last step. I swallowed it.

To say it hurt would be a waste of the chance to use words like searing or agonizing.  The pain was... indescribable. When I came to I was in the hospice, not to mention under arrest...

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #9 on: June 07, 2016, 06:15:25 PM »
Father did not react well.
Breaking and entering.
Theft.
Performance of a forbidden ritual.
I was disowned on the spot as soon as he was done bribing the charges away. Within an hour of waking up I was alone, homeless and without direction. The future opened up before me... empty.

The nurses had some small sympathy... I doubt any person within a mile had not heard my fathers parting words. Was I sad? Was I angry? I can't even remember. I think I was numb. The numbness that spreads up your arm when you take a blow on your shield, but in my brain and in my heart.

On my second day in the hospice I received an unexpected visitor. An old man, his grey hair sparse and lankey, bones showing through his parchment thin skin, long, spiderlike fingers at the ends of his clammy hands.

He introduced himself. Adolphus Merrin, head of the library I had broken into. His expression was cold, severe, as he questioned me about the ritual I had performed.

Why?
How?
Who?
What?

His questioning was as cold, angular and intense as the man himself. He casually stripped me of every excuse, every attempt to hide as easily as a bear would strike down a kitten until I was sat there, tears on my cheeks, totally exposed in mind, heart and soul.

Once he had all he wanted from me, he rose creakily. He paused at the doorway and looked back, his icy blue eyes taking me in.

"You will be recovered by the end of the week, Miss Diams. You will then report to my library. I care not who your father has paid to see you avoid justice. You owe me recompense, and I will have my pound of flesh from you."

His words were a frozen spike down my spine.

"But... I..."

"I believe in freedom, Miss Diams, and the most important freedom is the freedom to take the concequences of your actions."

I fell silent as his eyes hardened, diamond augers could not have ground through my will faster. My resistance collapsed, I nodded weakly. He left without a further word, I was alone with my new freedom.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2016, 08:05:50 PM »
That night I had the dream for the first time.

On the break of dawn I was escorted to the library, back to the scene of my crime. The building itself was huge, a cathedral to the aquisition of knowlege, sprawling, expansive... intimidating in the light of day and looming grossly in my mind.

Through tight cortidors and expansive rooms lined with shelves I was taken, until we arrived at the masters study. He sat behind his desk, lean, angular... a great spider-vulture in his nest, waiting to devour me. He dismissed my escort with a flick of a bony appendage, leaving me alone, huddled beneath a gaze that would put the chill of the abyss to shame.

Niceties and small talk were never to become something he employed.

"You will be joining our staff with several other apprentices this morning."

He watched my reaction from over steepled fingers, unsmiling.

"Why? Because you have potential, girl, and I will not see you waste it when it can be of use to this institution."

"But... I... You can't jus-"

His words contained no anger, no ferocity, but the cut like glacial razors, leaving my defiance in bleeding, frozen ribbons.

"You can decline, you have that freedom."

Freedom... a word that he had made terrifying to me with so few, simple words. I used to long for freedom, I fought so hard to be free of things I thought tied me down. Now I knew better.

I bowed my head.

He did not smile, but there was a certain satisfaction in his cold, grey-blue eyes. The satisfaction of a trap well set, a plan well executed, prey totally snared and helpless.

"Lydia."

He snapped his fingers and a woman I had not even noticed stepped out from behind me. She must have been there all along. She wore a severe dress, her inky hair in a tight bun, glasses rested at the bridge of her nose, dark eyes behind. She looked so much like the very image of a fusty librarian that she could have been a humerous caricature... until you saw her move. Lydia moved like a snake and a panther had given birth to something even deadlier than themselves.

"Master."

"Take miss Diams to the apprentice quarters, the others will be arriving soon."

"Master."

Lydia bowed her head and glanced to me, I have never felt fear quite like that before or since. She did not beckon, snap her fingers or bark an order. It was simply clear that following her was the only thing in this world that would present an alternative to a meteoric descent into the very depths of the nine hells.

I followed, without a word.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2016, 06:09:00 PM »
I scuttled after Lydia into the depths of the library, along corridors lined with dusty shelves, through great halls of books. What truly surprised me was the sheer number of people that seemed to be working in this place. I had always thought libraries to be quiet, dead places. That was always how they had seemed on the surface, but moving through the back passages and rooms I saw archivests, illuminators, illustrators, copiers, binders, cooks, cleaners and even the odd guard hrre and there, looking barely concious at first and then terrified and alert as Lydia swept past with me in tow.

Finally we arrived at a small dormitory. Double bunks lined the walls, small drawers built into their bases. The furniture looked old, worn, but well cared for. Lydia turned her dark eyes on me, seeming to gaze through me as if I was just another dust mote.

"The apprentice master will collect you. You will remain here until he does."

She flicked a slim, pale finger at a bunk and turned to sweep out. I opened my mouth to stop her, question her, try to find my mental feet, anything, she was gone before I could pull my flustered mind into line behind my mouth.

So, there I sat. Disowned, enslaved, so far out of my depth I would have been unsurprised should I have stumbled upon a kraken. I missed my room, my home, my bed, my books... but at least I was free of him. There's always a bright side somewhere if you look for it. I found myself smiling despite myself, laughing at my own predicament. Maybe I've always been a little bit mad or maybe I was just at the limit of what one mind should have to deal with in a week.

After a while, when the hilarity of my failed life at sixteen had died away, I took a little closer look around the room. Six bunks, twelve beds in all. Four looked unused, you know you can always tell if a bed is actually slept in or if it was made a week ago and left untouched. Four of the other beds were well made, unremarkable, neat.

The bunk opposite me clearly contained two people of very different personalities. The top bunk was made so neatly I swear a set square would have been needed to fold the blankets at such a crisp angle. The bed below it, in contrast, while neat was clearly made in either a rush, or by someone with something else on their mind entirely, I could see the corner of a book poking out from under the pillow, which was slightly rumpled. The owner of the third bunk, above mine had affixed a glass to the headboard, in which a small flower bloomed despite the weak, second hand light from the rooms lightwell.

"Huh... alright, a control freak, a bumbler and a sweet, flower lover."

I smiled to myself again, at the very least it would be interesting to meet some new people. At that moment the door opened and a man stepped in, dressed in shapeless, brown robes. If I was to tell you that someone was a librarian, Apprentice Master Brennan would be the furthest from the image conjured into your mind. He stood seven feet tall and was built like several oxen had gotten together and crammed themselves into a suit... with limited success.

He looked me up and down, his expression the first warm one I had seen in days, his voice was a deep, basso rumble.

"Miss Diams?"

"I um... yes?"

" I am the apprentice master, Maren Brennan, Master Brennan to you. Come on, let's get you to work. It's scribing practice today."

He gestured to the door with a hand the size and probably overall resiliance of a shovel.

"I'll explain everything on the way to meet your fellows."

I took a deep breath and nodded with a weak smile. Finally I might get some answers.

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Re: Chira Diams - In the shadow of wide wings
« Reply #12 on: August 26, 2016, 11:06:35 AM »
// Spoke with Amon-si bumping this for them to try and save

Monica O'Sullivan: Master explorer
Tsubaki Yamamoto: Shadow Thief
Roesor Cryso: A slave for the Masters.
Sokol: An Unlikely Hero