07-31-2019, 11:07 PM
/tw: blood, death, injury (including eye injuries), guilt-tripping, dead person impersonation, flashbacks
/tl;dr at end, but stuff after HR line is the main important stuff
Rin had taken a few days to wander out of Elysium territory. She’d needed to get away for some time, lest she start to think she actually belonged to them; she was a stranger accepting their generous hospitality, and that was all. Besides, she needed to stake out more territory anyway.
She had come across a cliff, beyond which lay the sea. The sea god might be in hiding there, she pondered as she walked along the raised coastline, listening to the sound of the ocean. If she detached the roaring tides from the memories of the observatory, it was almost calming. Almost. Her thoughts on that were interrupted, however, as her eyes noticed something.
On the cliff stood a creature, looking for all the world like she was lost. Rin made her way towards the stranger, opening her mouth to call out a greeting, a question, a request. As she breathed in the scent, her eyes discerning that the creature was a cream-colored feline, she froze.
A pang struck her like a sledgehammer would a bell, the shock reverberating through her entire body, right to the core. The ever-familiar burning in her eyes arose in full force; she blinked once, twice, three times, both to ascertain that she wasn’t imagining things and to dismiss any semblance of tears. She couldn’t lose it. Not here, not when everything was at stake.
The figure was still there, looking the same as before, no change in her form. Realization set in, heavy and painful. This had to be a trap.
Her claws remained sheathed, but her muscles tensed as she approached the stranger, ears flattened back. As she came within a few feet, the stranger turned her head.
Their eyes met, emerald green on whiskey brown. Her breath caught in her throat, a low wheeze stifled by tightly-clamped jaws. Her claws extended and gripped the ground beneath her, holding on for dear life.
She wanted to hope. She wanted this to be as it appeared, for them to embrace in a tearful reunion and never let go, for them to go through the rest of their time in this world together because suffering was not so bad if you had someone you trusted by your side. She longed for the days when she wasn’t so alone.
Rin swallowed back the constriction in her throat, pushing those hopes aside. “Why do we stargaze?” she asked, steeling her gaze. A simple question, four words, yet it would reveal everything.
The other stared blankly for a second, a short pause that revealed all too much. A wide smile crept onto her features, but the expression did not reach her eyes. “I like to be reminded that the world is so much bigger than I am,” she answered, tilting her head in faux curiosity. “I’d think you would have remembered that.”
Rin felt her chest tighten for the briefest of moments, and inhaled deeply, until the air rushing into her lungs brought on a rush of adrenaline. Leveling her gaze at the other, she narrowed her eyes. “Wrong answer,” she stated simply. “You missed the point.”
The stranger furrowed her brows, her smile fading away and her eyes gleaming. “Not good enough?” she asked, a distinct sadness in her tone. She stepped cautiously, delicately even, towards Rin, until their eyes were inches apart.
Rin could barely maintain her scowl, even though she knew- she knew- this was an imposter. “Back away, and I’ll let you live,” she hissed, baring her teeth. “Consider that mercy.”
The imposter hesitated a moment, then smiled. “I’m amazed,” she murmured, “I didn’t expect this from you.” She dipped her head, as if in regard- and struck out with one paw, her claws tearing through Rin’s scarf and pricking at the sides of her neck. With a yelp, Rin jumped back, landing roughly on the edge of the cliff, losing purchase, and falling off.
Rin willed herself to levitate, slowing to a stop well before hitting the rocks below. Lifting her head, she caught sight of a snow-white owl swooping down towards her, talons extended. Twisting around in midair, she lurched out of the way of the claws, and then lifted herself back up to the top of the cliff- setting back down on solid ground. Whipping around, she watched the owl land a few feet away.
“Hello, Venus,” Rin snarled, taking an arrow out of her quiver and pointing it at the owl. “Getting creative, I see.”
The owl contorted, feathers turning back to fur- yellow this time, striped and ragged from a life of risk and danger. With a chuckle, she lifted her golden gaze to Rin and answered, “Don’t act so surprised, dear. I am the Maiden, the goddess of love… but who said it was just romantic love?”
Rin took a deep breath and fired the arrow at the Maiden’s tiny form, but the Maiden easily ducked underneath it and charged at her, swiping at her legs. Rin swiftly stepped to the side and swept one front paw outwards, solidly kicking the false apprentice away. The smaller feline tumbled across the grass, landing in a winded heap a short distance away. Her fur melted down, the frame of her body shrinking, until a solid gray munchkin remained in her place.
The impostor slowly got to their feet, their violet eyes rising to meet Rin’s. “Now, how did you get so callous?” they spoke softly, pacing towards her. “So easily able to harm the likeness of the ones who once loved you.”
This isn’t real, Rin forcefully reminded herself, lifting another arrow. Their eyes pierced to her core, instilling a heavy dread within her. She gritted her teeth, and fired- the arrow slicing through the impersonator’s ear, eliciting a loud yelp from them. They recoiled, lowering their head, reaching a paw up to their ear. Their fur darkened, their form growing, limbs and snout elongating.
The black lab raised his head, his light brown gaze uncharacteristically furious. With bared teeth, he lunged forward, screaming out, “How could you? They trusted you!”
Rin blinked, shaking her head thickly. It was little more than a cheap parlor trick, literally anyone would’ve been able to tell it wasn’t really the friendly, spirited canine, but she couldn’t shake it. She knew it couldn’t be real, yet the Maiden’s words struck too close to home, just as the canine’s teeth sunk into her leg. With a pained hiss, Rin slashed at him with her other paw, leaving gashes across his face. He cried out, his teeth releasing her as he stumbled back and fell to the ground. His fur hardened into scales, the hues growing lighter until all the colors of the rainbow could be seen on the creature’s form.
The serpentine beast reared up, then slammed into the ground in a burst of flame, forcing Rin to jump back to avoid getting burned. When the blaze subsided, a white serval emerged, copper eyes narrowed. Her paws wreathed themselves in blue fire, licking hungrily in Rin’s direction. “You likened your clan to a phoenix once,” she remarked flatly, sauntering over, as though making conversation rather than dueling to the death. “But I thought phoenixes were supposed to live forever.”
Rin lunged at the impostor, aiming a slash at her eyes. The impostor calmly stepped aside, raising a paw to swipe at her tail as she passed by- scorching the fur down to the skin on the tail’s tip, and eliciting a growl from Rin.
Gritting her teeth, Rin skidded to a stop and flung an arrow- missing the serval’s throat, but striking her in the leg, knocking her down. Her fur slowly washed a chocolate brown, striped with both a natural pattern and with the blood of the Maiden’s injuries. Staring at the impostor’s non-wounded legs, Rin saw the flattened fur where the sweater cuffs would have been.
Absolutely disgusting, what the Maiden was doing- utterly reprehensible. “You know, for as much as I hate all of you,” Rin growled, entering a defensive stance, “at least Huntress and Torchbearer fought with honor. Can’t say that for you.”
The impostor smiled, a twisted mimicry of the one whose form she’d taken. “You think love is honorable,” she said, as though the notion was ridiculous. “Love is the dirtiest, most dishonest business in the world. I’d think you would know that better than anyone. Besides-“ she charged at Rin, her smile morphing into a sadistic grin- “you’re a fine one to speak of honor.”
Rin stepped to the side- the wrong side, she realized too late, as the impostor struck out and scored her claws across her face. Flinching away, Rin kicked out at one of her opponent’s legs. Though the faker dodged out of the way, she stumbled over her wounded leg, just enough for Rin to rush in and strike at her left eye. Her claws dug into the socket, and the Maiden staggered back with a howl of pain, already beginning to shift. The chocolate tabby grew, streaks of gray expanding across the pelt as black, feathered wings burst from the sides.
Still bloodied, the lost eye fitting right in, the wolf took off into the air, circling Rin faster than she could turn around in her state. His teeth fixed in her scruff, and he pitched her across the clearing, where she slammed into a tree and slid down onto the grass.
“Can I ask,” the wolf snarled, padding over to her and glaring down, “does it make you feel any better that your stupid crusade wasn’t totally pointless? That there really were big, bad gods to blame everything on?”
She stared back up at him, trying to focus as her vision recovered from the sudden shock. “No,” she answered finally, internally startled by her own quick response. Staggering to her feet, she straightened up and shook her head. “It really doesn’t.”
The wolf tilted his head, brows furrowed.
Rin nodded. “Not that it matters.” Before he could respond, she took out an arrow and flung it at him, striking him directly in the side. He roared in pain, stumbling but remaining upright, as a shock of white fur overtook his form and expanded to cover a much larger frame.
Rin would’ve recognized the polar bear anywhere, even without the one remaining baby blue eye staring out at her. “Do you remember the songs?” the impostor said softly, morosely even. Like she had any understanding of how Rin felt about any of these people.
Rin steeled herself. “Of course I do.”
The impersonator chuckled lowly. Rin’s only warning was the laughter lapsing into a loud snarl, and then the polar bear advanced, charging towards her at full speed. She’d done this before, with the Torchbearer. A simple misdirection, then counterattack.
But the Torchbearer hadn’t been a dear friend.
Exhaling harshly through her teeth, Rin lifted herself into the air, raking her claws across the liar’s back as the two passed each other. As the polar bear skidded into the tree, Rin dropped down, landing unsteadily on her feet. “How long before I get to see the real you?” she remarked, impressed at how calm the query came out. She definitely didn’t feel calm right now.
The thick, white overcoat receded to reveal another chocolate feline, her iron-gray gaze infuriated. With not even a word, she bolted towards Rin, claws outstretched. Rin deflected the incoming slash with a swipe of her own. “Not the first time- that someone’s disguised as her,” Rin commented, ducking under one blow and jumping over another. Anything to distract herself from the inherently disturbing nature of what the Maiden was doing.
The impostor lunged with open jaws, clamping onto Rin’s neck area. Rin reached up with one paw and sliced at the Maiden’s front leg, ripping at the Achilles’ tendon. As the imposter released her grip and staggered backwards, Rin cautiously felt at her own neck. There were multiple tears in her scarf, but nothing was bleeding.
The imposter’s fur, beneath the crimson spatters, faded into a soft gray with dark spots. His icy blue eye stared up at her, startling her out of her thoughts about the scarf. “So it all burned down, huh?” he said, apathy clear in his voice. “Just like your other clan.”
Rin stalked towards him as he coiled in on himself, and sunk his teeth into the arrow in his side. In one swift movement, he yanked it out, blood dripping freely from the wound. Her eyes widened at this blatant self-sabotage, but before she could say anything, he lurched forwards and stabbed the arrow into her shoulder.
With a stifled snarl, she recoiled, then swung her good paw at him, tearing a gash in the side of his head. He tumbled to the floor, twitching slightly in pain, as his form expanded once more.
The bengal shifted in both size and hue into a golden lion, the mane crowned with blood. Shaking his head, he got to his feet and gazed down at her. “Gotta admit, I’ve got as much idea as you how long this will take,” he commented, before swooping down to lunge for her neck.
Rin lurched back, his teeth just barely missing her, then took out another arrow and fired it at his shoulder. The tip sunk deep into his flesh, but he barely spared it a glance. Shaking his head, he said, “You just won’t die, will you?”
His eye remained on her as he shrunk, though its hue slowly shifted from a dull gold to a pale green. The feline form shifted to that of a Russian blue, small and malnourished, too young for all that had happened to her. Rin sucked in a breath at the sight, her eyes widening.
The impostor scowled. “Funny,” she commented with venom in her voice, “how you always seem to think ‘oh, this time I’ll do better.’ Then you never do.” With a long sigh, she lowered her head. “It’s always been this way.”
“Liar,” Rin snarled, though she couldn’t hide the crack in her voice. “You can’t speak for all of them. You’re just a-“ she swallowed- “you’re just a fake.”
The Maiden raised her brows, looking up at Rin for what felt like an eternity. Then she dove down, underneath Rin- Rin jumped back, but the Russian Blue’s teeth sunk into her back leg. With a yell, Rin kicked out with that leg, throwing off the emaciated, exhausted impostor.
Breathing heavily, Rin turned to face the Maiden, readying another arrow. “Go ahead,” she hissed, ears pinned back against her skull. “Go ahead, pretend you’re someone else. I dare you.”
The blood covering the stranger’s form obscured her choice of creature, but it was almost as small as the munchkin. As the impostor finally stood up, her eye a deep, clouded blue, Rin bit her tongue. Of course the Maiden couldn’t be satisfied with just one child.
The bobtail kitten stood there for a few moments, not making a move. “You couldn’t shoot a blind girl, could you?” she murmured.
“Coward.” Rin stalked over to the fake kitten, teeth bared. “Disguising as kits to get a cheap shot.”
Once she got close enough, the kit leaped for the arrow in Rin’s shoulder. Rin swiveled around and caught the impostor by the tail as she passed by, then threw her into a tree. The crack of the kit’s bones hit her with a pang of irrational guilt.
The kit writhed in pain, as her fur turned a dark, striped gray. Rin didn’t hesitate, marching swiftly towards the shifting impersonator. She knew what form the Maiden was about to take.
Her paws slammed onto the impostor’s shoulders just as his sunflower-yellow eye snapped open, fixing directly on her. All her efforts to silence her conscience crumbled to nothing within his stare.
“How many times has this happened now?” he asked hoarsely, blood dripping from his maw. “You… letting me down, I mean?”
Rin shut her eyes and readied an arrow, her breathing ragged. “How many times, Mother?” she heard him demand, his voice cracking. Her entire form trembled, her ears flattening back. She had to do it. She… had to do it.
She couldn’t do it.
She released him, lifting her paws and letting him scramble away. Her eyes met his, the terror giving way to bitterness in his gaze. He was… so tall, almost grown, yet he was still little more than a child.
She blinked, and the imposter was right in front of her, claws outstretched towards her face. All pretense had been discarded.
Good.
Screaming out in rage, Rin knocked the impostor away with one paw, and shot the arrow into his throat. He fell to the ground with a hard thud, almost hard enough to make her forget that he was a fake- forget and rush to his side to help him. Her eyes remained cold as the charlatan twitched there, his fur shifting back into a creamy tone.
Rin couldn’t look away, even as the Maiden reformed into the honey-eyed feline. She tried to force a neutral expression onto her facial features, but her teeth remained clenched, her brows knit together, her breathing unsteady. She doubted she could speak without losing her composure completely.
As the twitching subsided, the Maiden lay on her back, her wounds exposed to the open air. She cackled harshly, mocking laughs interspersed with bloodied coughs. Fixing her falsified amber gaze on Rin, she rasped, “Look at what you’ve become.”
The light faded from her eyes, and her body slowly caved in on itself, cream fur folding into white feathers. Rin watched the corpse shrink away, until all that remained was a white dove, spread-eagled in a pool of crimson blood. The eyes remained open, glazed and glassy, searing their whiskey-colored surfaces into Rin’s memory.
Rin squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head, the sting of her wounds arising in full force. Her limbs threatened to buckle under her as she turned and walked away from the scene, leaving the arrows in the Maiden’s corpse. She couldn’t find it in her to care about losing track of her ammunition.
It was just a dove, a feathered charlatan who had the gall to label herself a goddess of love. She had shot an enemy in disguise. The Maiden would’ve wanted her to feel like she’d just murdered her friends, her children, her beloved, but it wasn’t true. It wasn’t.
Her legs gave out, and her face crashed into the dirt, the grains digging into the gashes the Maiden had left. Gritting her teeth, Rin lifted her head and gazed off into the distance, the ocean roaring on the horizon even as her vision darkened. Her breaths came out ragged, half-formed, wracked by emotions she refused to let reach her mind.
She lowered her head back onto the soil, and tried not to think.
[font=trebuchet ms]Eventually, her eyes reopened, her face still planted in the dirt.
Something didn’t feel right about the way her form sank into the ground. She wasn’t dead, she knew enough about what death felt like to know she wasn’t in that state at this moment. Yet, it seemed… almost like her weight was distributed differently. Like her fur fell flatter against her form, though the blood coating her probably wasn’t helping there.
Struggling to her feet, she looked up and saw a puddle a short distance away. Stumbling over to it, she looked down at her reflection. Looking back at her was some form of… weasel? No, looking at it closer, she could tell it was an otter, albeit colored black and white rather than the usual brown. Why an otter, though? And how had she become one?
Well, she was close to the Typhoon. Someone would probably know how she’d turned out this way, and how to change her back. Maybe she’d gained the power to shapeshift or something, and it’d be as simple as willing herself to change. Maybe it was a curse and she was stuck like this. Who knew, really.
Rin walked in that direction, trying her best to focus on her strange predicament and not on her physical injuries… or mental ones, for that matter. She’d have plenty of time for that the next time she went to sleep, she reflected bitterly. She might be able to weasel her way into getting herbs to treat herself if she offered to replace them before she left, especially since they shared a common enemy, but she didn’t want to push her luck.
Arriving at last at the end of the railroad, worn out from her... strenuous day, Rin sat down on the sand and took a few moments to catch her breath. She’d save the speech for when someone came by.
/tl;dr: Rin fights a goddess who shapeshifts into the forms of her dead friends, almost dies several times, but finally kills said goddess; she wakes up having unconsciously shapeshifted into an otter, and is now on the Typhoon border seeking help
/super tl;dr: wounded, confused otter who's kinda-sorta an Elysium member on Typhoon border
/word count: 3468
/this isn't very well proof-read so Rin might've fired more arrows over the course of the fight than she actually had in her quiver... whatevs
/tl;dr at end, but stuff after HR line is the main important stuff
Rin had taken a few days to wander out of Elysium territory. She’d needed to get away for some time, lest she start to think she actually belonged to them; she was a stranger accepting their generous hospitality, and that was all. Besides, she needed to stake out more territory anyway.
She had come across a cliff, beyond which lay the sea. The sea god might be in hiding there, she pondered as she walked along the raised coastline, listening to the sound of the ocean. If she detached the roaring tides from the memories of the observatory, it was almost calming. Almost. Her thoughts on that were interrupted, however, as her eyes noticed something.
On the cliff stood a creature, looking for all the world like she was lost. Rin made her way towards the stranger, opening her mouth to call out a greeting, a question, a request. As she breathed in the scent, her eyes discerning that the creature was a cream-colored feline, she froze.
A pang struck her like a sledgehammer would a bell, the shock reverberating through her entire body, right to the core. The ever-familiar burning in her eyes arose in full force; she blinked once, twice, three times, both to ascertain that she wasn’t imagining things and to dismiss any semblance of tears. She couldn’t lose it. Not here, not when everything was at stake.
The figure was still there, looking the same as before, no change in her form. Realization set in, heavy and painful. This had to be a trap.
Her claws remained sheathed, but her muscles tensed as she approached the stranger, ears flattened back. As she came within a few feet, the stranger turned her head.
Their eyes met, emerald green on whiskey brown. Her breath caught in her throat, a low wheeze stifled by tightly-clamped jaws. Her claws extended and gripped the ground beneath her, holding on for dear life.
She wanted to hope. She wanted this to be as it appeared, for them to embrace in a tearful reunion and never let go, for them to go through the rest of their time in this world together because suffering was not so bad if you had someone you trusted by your side. She longed for the days when she wasn’t so alone.
Rin swallowed back the constriction in her throat, pushing those hopes aside. “Why do we stargaze?” she asked, steeling her gaze. A simple question, four words, yet it would reveal everything.
The other stared blankly for a second, a short pause that revealed all too much. A wide smile crept onto her features, but the expression did not reach her eyes. “I like to be reminded that the world is so much bigger than I am,” she answered, tilting her head in faux curiosity. “I’d think you would have remembered that.”
Rin felt her chest tighten for the briefest of moments, and inhaled deeply, until the air rushing into her lungs brought on a rush of adrenaline. Leveling her gaze at the other, she narrowed her eyes. “Wrong answer,” she stated simply. “You missed the point.”
The stranger furrowed her brows, her smile fading away and her eyes gleaming. “Not good enough?” she asked, a distinct sadness in her tone. She stepped cautiously, delicately even, towards Rin, until their eyes were inches apart.
Rin could barely maintain her scowl, even though she knew- she knew- this was an imposter. “Back away, and I’ll let you live,” she hissed, baring her teeth. “Consider that mercy.”
The imposter hesitated a moment, then smiled. “I’m amazed,” she murmured, “I didn’t expect this from you.” She dipped her head, as if in regard- and struck out with one paw, her claws tearing through Rin’s scarf and pricking at the sides of her neck. With a yelp, Rin jumped back, landing roughly on the edge of the cliff, losing purchase, and falling off.
Rin willed herself to levitate, slowing to a stop well before hitting the rocks below. Lifting her head, she caught sight of a snow-white owl swooping down towards her, talons extended. Twisting around in midair, she lurched out of the way of the claws, and then lifted herself back up to the top of the cliff- setting back down on solid ground. Whipping around, she watched the owl land a few feet away.
“Hello, Venus,” Rin snarled, taking an arrow out of her quiver and pointing it at the owl. “Getting creative, I see.”
The owl contorted, feathers turning back to fur- yellow this time, striped and ragged from a life of risk and danger. With a chuckle, she lifted her golden gaze to Rin and answered, “Don’t act so surprised, dear. I am the Maiden, the goddess of love… but who said it was just romantic love?”
Rin took a deep breath and fired the arrow at the Maiden’s tiny form, but the Maiden easily ducked underneath it and charged at her, swiping at her legs. Rin swiftly stepped to the side and swept one front paw outwards, solidly kicking the false apprentice away. The smaller feline tumbled across the grass, landing in a winded heap a short distance away. Her fur melted down, the frame of her body shrinking, until a solid gray munchkin remained in her place.
The impostor slowly got to their feet, their violet eyes rising to meet Rin’s. “Now, how did you get so callous?” they spoke softly, pacing towards her. “So easily able to harm the likeness of the ones who once loved you.”
This isn’t real, Rin forcefully reminded herself, lifting another arrow. Their eyes pierced to her core, instilling a heavy dread within her. She gritted her teeth, and fired- the arrow slicing through the impersonator’s ear, eliciting a loud yelp from them. They recoiled, lowering their head, reaching a paw up to their ear. Their fur darkened, their form growing, limbs and snout elongating.
The black lab raised his head, his light brown gaze uncharacteristically furious. With bared teeth, he lunged forward, screaming out, “How could you? They trusted you!”
Rin blinked, shaking her head thickly. It was little more than a cheap parlor trick, literally anyone would’ve been able to tell it wasn’t really the friendly, spirited canine, but she couldn’t shake it. She knew it couldn’t be real, yet the Maiden’s words struck too close to home, just as the canine’s teeth sunk into her leg. With a pained hiss, Rin slashed at him with her other paw, leaving gashes across his face. He cried out, his teeth releasing her as he stumbled back and fell to the ground. His fur hardened into scales, the hues growing lighter until all the colors of the rainbow could be seen on the creature’s form.
The serpentine beast reared up, then slammed into the ground in a burst of flame, forcing Rin to jump back to avoid getting burned. When the blaze subsided, a white serval emerged, copper eyes narrowed. Her paws wreathed themselves in blue fire, licking hungrily in Rin’s direction. “You likened your clan to a phoenix once,” she remarked flatly, sauntering over, as though making conversation rather than dueling to the death. “But I thought phoenixes were supposed to live forever.”
Rin lunged at the impostor, aiming a slash at her eyes. The impostor calmly stepped aside, raising a paw to swipe at her tail as she passed by- scorching the fur down to the skin on the tail’s tip, and eliciting a growl from Rin.
Gritting her teeth, Rin skidded to a stop and flung an arrow- missing the serval’s throat, but striking her in the leg, knocking her down. Her fur slowly washed a chocolate brown, striped with both a natural pattern and with the blood of the Maiden’s injuries. Staring at the impostor’s non-wounded legs, Rin saw the flattened fur where the sweater cuffs would have been.
Absolutely disgusting, what the Maiden was doing- utterly reprehensible. “You know, for as much as I hate all of you,” Rin growled, entering a defensive stance, “at least Huntress and Torchbearer fought with honor. Can’t say that for you.”
The impostor smiled, a twisted mimicry of the one whose form she’d taken. “You think love is honorable,” she said, as though the notion was ridiculous. “Love is the dirtiest, most dishonest business in the world. I’d think you would know that better than anyone. Besides-“ she charged at Rin, her smile morphing into a sadistic grin- “you’re a fine one to speak of honor.”
Rin stepped to the side- the wrong side, she realized too late, as the impostor struck out and scored her claws across her face. Flinching away, Rin kicked out at one of her opponent’s legs. Though the faker dodged out of the way, she stumbled over her wounded leg, just enough for Rin to rush in and strike at her left eye. Her claws dug into the socket, and the Maiden staggered back with a howl of pain, already beginning to shift. The chocolate tabby grew, streaks of gray expanding across the pelt as black, feathered wings burst from the sides.
Still bloodied, the lost eye fitting right in, the wolf took off into the air, circling Rin faster than she could turn around in her state. His teeth fixed in her scruff, and he pitched her across the clearing, where she slammed into a tree and slid down onto the grass.
“Can I ask,” the wolf snarled, padding over to her and glaring down, “does it make you feel any better that your stupid crusade wasn’t totally pointless? That there really were big, bad gods to blame everything on?”
She stared back up at him, trying to focus as her vision recovered from the sudden shock. “No,” she answered finally, internally startled by her own quick response. Staggering to her feet, she straightened up and shook her head. “It really doesn’t.”
The wolf tilted his head, brows furrowed.
Rin nodded. “Not that it matters.” Before he could respond, she took out an arrow and flung it at him, striking him directly in the side. He roared in pain, stumbling but remaining upright, as a shock of white fur overtook his form and expanded to cover a much larger frame.
Rin would’ve recognized the polar bear anywhere, even without the one remaining baby blue eye staring out at her. “Do you remember the songs?” the impostor said softly, morosely even. Like she had any understanding of how Rin felt about any of these people.
Rin steeled herself. “Of course I do.”
The impersonator chuckled lowly. Rin’s only warning was the laughter lapsing into a loud snarl, and then the polar bear advanced, charging towards her at full speed. She’d done this before, with the Torchbearer. A simple misdirection, then counterattack.
But the Torchbearer hadn’t been a dear friend.
Exhaling harshly through her teeth, Rin lifted herself into the air, raking her claws across the liar’s back as the two passed each other. As the polar bear skidded into the tree, Rin dropped down, landing unsteadily on her feet. “How long before I get to see the real you?” she remarked, impressed at how calm the query came out. She definitely didn’t feel calm right now.
The thick, white overcoat receded to reveal another chocolate feline, her iron-gray gaze infuriated. With not even a word, she bolted towards Rin, claws outstretched. Rin deflected the incoming slash with a swipe of her own. “Not the first time- that someone’s disguised as her,” Rin commented, ducking under one blow and jumping over another. Anything to distract herself from the inherently disturbing nature of what the Maiden was doing.
The impostor lunged with open jaws, clamping onto Rin’s neck area. Rin reached up with one paw and sliced at the Maiden’s front leg, ripping at the Achilles’ tendon. As the imposter released her grip and staggered backwards, Rin cautiously felt at her own neck. There were multiple tears in her scarf, but nothing was bleeding.
The imposter’s fur, beneath the crimson spatters, faded into a soft gray with dark spots. His icy blue eye stared up at her, startling her out of her thoughts about the scarf. “So it all burned down, huh?” he said, apathy clear in his voice. “Just like your other clan.”
Rin stalked towards him as he coiled in on himself, and sunk his teeth into the arrow in his side. In one swift movement, he yanked it out, blood dripping freely from the wound. Her eyes widened at this blatant self-sabotage, but before she could say anything, he lurched forwards and stabbed the arrow into her shoulder.
With a stifled snarl, she recoiled, then swung her good paw at him, tearing a gash in the side of his head. He tumbled to the floor, twitching slightly in pain, as his form expanded once more.
The bengal shifted in both size and hue into a golden lion, the mane crowned with blood. Shaking his head, he got to his feet and gazed down at her. “Gotta admit, I’ve got as much idea as you how long this will take,” he commented, before swooping down to lunge for her neck.
Rin lurched back, his teeth just barely missing her, then took out another arrow and fired it at his shoulder. The tip sunk deep into his flesh, but he barely spared it a glance. Shaking his head, he said, “You just won’t die, will you?”
His eye remained on her as he shrunk, though its hue slowly shifted from a dull gold to a pale green. The feline form shifted to that of a Russian blue, small and malnourished, too young for all that had happened to her. Rin sucked in a breath at the sight, her eyes widening.
The impostor scowled. “Funny,” she commented with venom in her voice, “how you always seem to think ‘oh, this time I’ll do better.’ Then you never do.” With a long sigh, she lowered her head. “It’s always been this way.”
“Liar,” Rin snarled, though she couldn’t hide the crack in her voice. “You can’t speak for all of them. You’re just a-“ she swallowed- “you’re just a fake.”
The Maiden raised her brows, looking up at Rin for what felt like an eternity. Then she dove down, underneath Rin- Rin jumped back, but the Russian Blue’s teeth sunk into her back leg. With a yell, Rin kicked out with that leg, throwing off the emaciated, exhausted impostor.
Breathing heavily, Rin turned to face the Maiden, readying another arrow. “Go ahead,” she hissed, ears pinned back against her skull. “Go ahead, pretend you’re someone else. I dare you.”
The blood covering the stranger’s form obscured her choice of creature, but it was almost as small as the munchkin. As the impostor finally stood up, her eye a deep, clouded blue, Rin bit her tongue. Of course the Maiden couldn’t be satisfied with just one child.
The bobtail kitten stood there for a few moments, not making a move. “You couldn’t shoot a blind girl, could you?” she murmured.
“Coward.” Rin stalked over to the fake kitten, teeth bared. “Disguising as kits to get a cheap shot.”
Once she got close enough, the kit leaped for the arrow in Rin’s shoulder. Rin swiveled around and caught the impostor by the tail as she passed by, then threw her into a tree. The crack of the kit’s bones hit her with a pang of irrational guilt.
The kit writhed in pain, as her fur turned a dark, striped gray. Rin didn’t hesitate, marching swiftly towards the shifting impersonator. She knew what form the Maiden was about to take.
Her paws slammed onto the impostor’s shoulders just as his sunflower-yellow eye snapped open, fixing directly on her. All her efforts to silence her conscience crumbled to nothing within his stare.
“How many times has this happened now?” he asked hoarsely, blood dripping from his maw. “You… letting me down, I mean?”
Rin shut her eyes and readied an arrow, her breathing ragged. “How many times, Mother?” she heard him demand, his voice cracking. Her entire form trembled, her ears flattening back. She had to do it. She… had to do it.
She couldn’t do it.
She released him, lifting her paws and letting him scramble away. Her eyes met his, the terror giving way to bitterness in his gaze. He was… so tall, almost grown, yet he was still little more than a child.
She blinked, and the imposter was right in front of her, claws outstretched towards her face. All pretense had been discarded.
Good.
Screaming out in rage, Rin knocked the impostor away with one paw, and shot the arrow into his throat. He fell to the ground with a hard thud, almost hard enough to make her forget that he was a fake- forget and rush to his side to help him. Her eyes remained cold as the charlatan twitched there, his fur shifting back into a creamy tone.
Rin couldn’t look away, even as the Maiden reformed into the honey-eyed feline. She tried to force a neutral expression onto her facial features, but her teeth remained clenched, her brows knit together, her breathing unsteady. She doubted she could speak without losing her composure completely.
As the twitching subsided, the Maiden lay on her back, her wounds exposed to the open air. She cackled harshly, mocking laughs interspersed with bloodied coughs. Fixing her falsified amber gaze on Rin, she rasped, “Look at what you’ve become.”
The light faded from her eyes, and her body slowly caved in on itself, cream fur folding into white feathers. Rin watched the corpse shrink away, until all that remained was a white dove, spread-eagled in a pool of crimson blood. The eyes remained open, glazed and glassy, searing their whiskey-colored surfaces into Rin’s memory.
Rin squeezed her eyes shut and lowered her head, the sting of her wounds arising in full force. Her limbs threatened to buckle under her as she turned and walked away from the scene, leaving the arrows in the Maiden’s corpse. She couldn’t find it in her to care about losing track of her ammunition.
It was just a dove, a feathered charlatan who had the gall to label herself a goddess of love. She had shot an enemy in disguise. The Maiden would’ve wanted her to feel like she’d just murdered her friends, her children, her beloved, but it wasn’t true. It wasn’t.
Her legs gave out, and her face crashed into the dirt, the grains digging into the gashes the Maiden had left. Gritting her teeth, Rin lifted her head and gazed off into the distance, the ocean roaring on the horizon even as her vision darkened. Her breaths came out ragged, half-formed, wracked by emotions she refused to let reach her mind.
She lowered her head back onto the soil, and tried not to think.
[font=trebuchet ms]Eventually, her eyes reopened, her face still planted in the dirt.
Something didn’t feel right about the way her form sank into the ground. She wasn’t dead, she knew enough about what death felt like to know she wasn’t in that state at this moment. Yet, it seemed… almost like her weight was distributed differently. Like her fur fell flatter against her form, though the blood coating her probably wasn’t helping there.
Struggling to her feet, she looked up and saw a puddle a short distance away. Stumbling over to it, she looked down at her reflection. Looking back at her was some form of… weasel? No, looking at it closer, she could tell it was an otter, albeit colored black and white rather than the usual brown. Why an otter, though? And how had she become one?
Well, she was close to the Typhoon. Someone would probably know how she’d turned out this way, and how to change her back. Maybe she’d gained the power to shapeshift or something, and it’d be as simple as willing herself to change. Maybe it was a curse and she was stuck like this. Who knew, really.
Rin walked in that direction, trying her best to focus on her strange predicament and not on her physical injuries… or mental ones, for that matter. She’d have plenty of time for that the next time she went to sleep, she reflected bitterly. She might be able to weasel her way into getting herbs to treat herself if she offered to replace them before she left, especially since they shared a common enemy, but she didn’t want to push her luck.
Arriving at last at the end of the railroad, worn out from her... strenuous day, Rin sat down on the sand and took a few moments to catch her breath. She’d save the speech for when someone came by.
/tl;dr: Rin fights a goddess who shapeshifts into the forms of her dead friends, almost dies several times, but finally kills said goddess; she wakes up having unconsciously shapeshifted into an otter, and is now on the Typhoon border seeking help
/super tl;dr: wounded, confused otter who's kinda-sorta an Elysium member on Typhoon border
/word count: 3468
/this isn't very well proof-read so Rin might've fired more arrows over the course of the fight than she actually had in her quiver... whatevs
tags (06/13/20):