- Chapter Four : Observation
Leeda smiled faintly at Karn who had taken the chair from her writing desk and placed it so that he could sit beside her. He looked about as nervous as she felt, since both of them were quite aware that the blankets of her bed were the only things covering her. As he tried to both look at her, and look away to preserve her humility, Karn chuckled faintly.
'What's so funny, Karn?' Leeda asked.
Karn shook his head and replied, 'Nothin'. Just thinkin'...' He smiled as his eyes met hers. 'Y'know... 'bout the old days...' Leeda smiled warmly as she thought back to the old days as well. Back when it seemed that she, Karn, and Rolen couldn't be seperated. She chuckled faintly herself to remember herself when she was shorter than Karn. She almost missed being the one that got taken care of, not that she would trade being a priestess for anything, but still... those days had been so good. So simple.
Now Rolen was in the forest, living like a hermit, and she and Karn barely kept in touch. Yes, they lived only five minutes walking distance apart, but with her duties as priestess, maintaining the chapel, giving counsel to those in need, and a constant study of the lore of the Guardians, not to mention that when Karn was not fixing or building something, he was working on one of his artistic projects, it meant that they rarely saw each other aside from the Solsday sermon.
She sighed faintly. Yes, the old days had been much simpler. She thought back to when the three of them had gone to the lake to swim, over 12 years ago. She smiled as the memory was so strong that she could practically hear the wind over the water. Back then, none of them had thought anything of it to see each other naked. Now, she blushed fiercely at the thought. 'Karn?' she asked quietly.
'Yeah?' She noticed that Karn's face was red. Likely he had been thinking along the same lines.
Leeda asked, 'Umm, could you please turn around?' One hand strayed from the blanket concealing her to the sleeve of her priest's robe, which she had been laying on since... since... come to think of it, why had it been removed in the first place? Well, it must have been done with good reason, she thought to herself.
As Karn turned his chair around so that he'd be looking away, Leeda took the robes and slipped her arms through the sleeves. Oddly, they seemed rather snug. As were the clasps when she tried to fasten them, refusing to meet around her torso. She had never had trouble putting on her robes before, since they had been designed to be loose, but she shrugged it off as a result of trying to put them on while sitting in bed. Yes, it must have been that, because the instant she managed to hook the clasps together and adjust her robes, they seemed to fit much better.
Resigning herself to simply resting and forgetting about the previous events of the day, Leeda fell back onto the bed.
'Ow!' She cried out in pain as her skull collided with the headboard. Karn turned around in concern. 'Leeda, you ok...' As she sat up again, she rubbed her head, knowing that she would have a nasty lump there soon. She looked down at Karn and gave him a self-depricating smile. 'Yes, I'm fine... Karn, why are you staring like that?'
Her smile turned into a look of worry at Karn's expression as he looked up at her. Stricken shock. 'Karn...?' she asked nervously. Then she realized... the height difference. She was used to having to look down at people, even Karn. But much of her height was in her long legs. Sitting down as they both were, they should be about eye to eye. And... no, it was impossible! Her line of vision seemed to be raising.
Terror. Her heart started pounding like a war drum, threatening to explode from the sheer unknown, unreasoning terror that struck deep into the core of her being. Now she could feel it. The sliding of her robe's fabric against the mattress. The pressure as her legs lengthened, pushing them against the board at the foot of the bed, forcing her to bend her knees more and more until she simply pulled them up to her chest and curled up as tightly as she could, trying to make herself as small as possible.
It didn't work. Even curled up like that, she took up over half the length of the eight foot long bed, and she was still growing. Both she and Karn heard the creaking of the bedframe as it was strained by the weight of her expanding form, but both were too paralyzed even to move. Her eyes burned fiercely with hot tears of fear and shame as she tried to withdraw further and further within herself, even as she felt her head brush against the ten foot high ceiling just moments before pushing against it.
Karn muttered, 'What's going on?' To Leeda's ears, the words sounded muffled and sluggish, as though underwater.
- - -
Lowe smiled at everyone he met as he walked to the chapel on the hill, taking time to greet those who stopped to talk to him along the way. All the while, he was observing. They were a simple enough people, farmers and ranchers mostly. Strangely, there seemed to be very little animosity toward him for being an outsider, something quite unusual in a town as secluded as this one was. Perhaps it was the very fact that they were secluded, as well as prosperous. Even more so than one would imagine from an After Ragnarok town of this size. That was not the most surprising thing, however.
By Gaia, Lowe thought to himself, All these Talents! It was true. It seemed to his sight that every fifth person he looked at was surrounded by an aura, indicating potential to use the power of Gaia. Almost everywhere else he had travelled, the rule had been one Talent out of every ten people, give or take by a slight margin. Fascinating. This place truly is blessed. He smiled widely and struck up a conversation with a family of farmers who were going the same way he was. Rich fields, ripe for the harvesting, and they don't even know it. Life truly is a wondrous miracle.
Then, without warning, something snapped his attention toward the chapel. Some strange and undefinable disturbance pulled his Talented perceptions to that building. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that he was not entirely alone. A few others seemed to feel something that caused them to glance up at the hill, but none of them appeared to feel what he felt.
Something big is happening over there.
- - -
Leeda bit her lip and tasted blood as her growth refused to stop. It seemed that all her fervent wishing and praying to the Guardians and Gaia were useless as she ducked her head down, only to have her shoulders meet the ceiling mere seconds later.
The bed could no longer take the pressure, as sturdily constructed as it may have been. Both Leeda and the one who had handcrafted that very bed heard the wood crack and start to splinter before finally succumbing. There was a crash, as the legs gave out, dropping Leeda about a foot. This gave her all of ten seconds before her shoulders met the ceiling again, redoubling her tears. By now, she filled out more than half of the bedroom, even huddled as tightly as she was.
Through her tears, she could see Karn, and immediately shut her eyes tightly. He was looking at her with fear, confusion, pity... when all she wanted was to wake up and find that this wasn't happening. The touch of his hand on her arm was all too realistic, though, as he reached out to console her despite the ever increasing likelihood of the ceiling collapsing on them both from the pressure it was taking. 'Leeda, you alri--'
'DON'T TOUCH ME!' she sobbed. Before she realized what she was doing, she lashed out with her arm, slamming him full in the chest with a backhand almost the size of his torso.
He weighed practically nothing. And flew the short distance across the room into the wall. There was a gruesome snapping sound.
She opened her eyes, and stared in horror as Karn's limp, lifeless body slowly slid down the wall, leaving behind it a trail of blood and shards of bone from where the back of his skull had shattered against the wall. His head lolled to one side, a hideous bulge in the side of the throat showing where his vertebrae had been broken.
And then... there THEY were. All of them, in the doorway. Gehn... Mina... Rolen... the Caas Reah, Tanis, and Holt. All of them staring at her in shock and terror. The same terror that she herself felt. As one, they looked at Karn's corpse. The lifeless form of her oldest and dearest friend. Then, their gaze turned back to her.
It was too hideous. Too unbearable. As her expanding back pushed with ever increasing pressure against the ceiling, she covered her eyes to try and make it all go away. Her hands... they felt sticky and warm.
Somehow, she knew. She knew what she would see, and wanted nothing more than to avoid it. But, as if controlled by some outside force like a marionette, she pulled her hands away from her face and looked at them.
They were both drenched in fresh blood.
She broke. She had to escape. Had to get away, no matter what. Straining desperately, she pushed with her legs to breach the bedroom ceiling. To break free and run, run, run away. The structure stood no chance. It crumbled all around her, sending mortar and shattered timbers falling all about. In the midst of it all, someone screamed powerfully and desperately enough to shatter the world.
Which is exactly what happened.
- - -
Lowe frowned slightly. Whatever he had seen emenating from the chapel, it had vanished from his perceptions. Whatever it had been, he had not sensed any focus behind it, or even any real power. More a sort of pervasiveness than any kind of directed energy. Perhaps a tamed Gaiabeast? Or perhaps the chapel simply had a haunting. Such things were not unheard of. He shook his head, put on his smile, and continued on his way.
- - -
Leeda awoke sobbing. Karn was seated beside her, gently holding her arm. 'Easy there, Leeda. You're safe. Jus' had a bad dream.' He didn't say how bad. It had taken all his strength just to keep her from thrashing around.
She blinked, looking at him through the tears in her eyes. 'K-karn?' He smiled reassuringly. 'Yeah, I'm here.' She blinked a few more times, trying to get her sobbing under control. Eventually, she calmed enough to look down at herself. She was dressed in her priest's robes once more, and her hands were clean of blood, though there were some harsh indentations where she must have clenched her fists tightly.
'You alright, Leeda?' Karn asked, concerned. He was taken completely by surprise when she suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and shoulders and embraced him tightly. She said nothing. Simply started to cry again, but this time in relief.
'I'm fine, I'm fine...' she whispered quietly. 'Thank the Guardians...'
Karn didn't question. He simply patted her gently on the back and tried not to think too much on the fact that she was embracing him. Whatever her dream had been, it had been a doozy, and right now all she needed was a comforting, friendly presence, which was what he was going to provide.
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