Cindy
*sigh* ud know this if u read the silmarillion...
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2018
- Messages
- 2,239
- Nebulae
- 7,440
Urphyrlaax descended from the color-muted sky in a manner not unlike a dewdrop moments before it was to part from a leaf, with stray ribbons of cloud still unfurling from around the invertebrate seraph's thorax. Hir translucent wings briefly suspended the descent and transitioned to a graceful landing upon the jagged cliff, hardly taking a step forward before hir head spun around. Xie scanned the skies with a thousand eyes, to discern any pursuers from the direction of the hive, but found the skies empty. Xie knew not to assuage hirself with a false sense of security, however, and elected to continue the rest of the journey on foot.
Few of the cluster had ever traveled to the surface, for the need to do so was uncommon, if not unprecedented. Still, it made navigating the uneven, corporeal stones of the mountain's slope an uneasing and nauseating experience. Any terrain, aside from the tunnels of the hives, were quite foreign, and much to hir chagrin, no mountain xie had ever dreamt was quite as tedious to traverse as the real one beneath hir feet. The shortcomings of a society of winged narcolepts, xie thought. Unfortunately, the likelihood that xie would be presented an opportunity to amend hir misconceptions of mountain climbing were swiftly approaching null. With only a silken tebenna folded around hir to bear the chill of the coastal winds, Urphyrlaax pressed forth in spite of the fatigue and cold. Sleeping was not an option; they would almost certainly find hir.
An eve's time elapsed by the time xie neared hir destination. Daylight sputtered against the surface of the waves as the ocean skyline birthed the sun once more. Urphyrlaax rose over the hill, and finally laid hir many eyes upon the object of hir journey: A long, massive silhouette, beached upon the grey shores that defied all reason. Xie had never conceived anything like it before, in all of the minds xie had touched. Sardaphons had spoke that it was an object of a dream far too early, but in this instance, it was precisely what was needed. It was in the right place, at the right time.
A disease had stricken hir people—a disease of thought, spread by the very thing that wove the fabric of their society. The memory of their culture had begun to corrupt, twist and fray. A mnemonic quarantine was attempted, but it hardly dented the rate of infection. It would not be long before they all carried the virus, utterly stripped of individual and wrung into nothing. Urphyrlaax, having clambered aboard the vessel, had but one chance to spare a life from that fate. Xie unfurled hir wings, and with them, reached into space. From the aperture of the whitest void, a lone larvae exited, comforted in hir embrace. There was no reason this child was chosen over the others—each among the brood equally special and valued, but Urphyrlaax, faced with a decision that would have been maternally impossible, could only save the one.
Xie placed the larvae in the bowels of the ship, wrapped snugly in silk. The grub chirped and cooed murmuringly, deep in the recesses of its own universe, left completely unaware of the journey across the unknown it was soon to embark upon. Before leaving the child to its destiny, Urphyrlaax imparted the last memory that it could give: The memory of love. The weight of such a tremendous memory consigned them to the scrutiny of the connected whole, whose search for Urphyrlaax for breaking the quarantine simultaneously provided an opportunity for the virus to spread to hir. Xie quickly ripped hirself from the child's mind, erupting the larvae in a fit of waking cries, and took flight from the ship before damage could be done. For the child was the future; the last of its kind.
The last of the Shu'ulathoi.
It is the year 1859.
A man, clad in the wears of high society, disembarks from his ship in the Boston harbor. He sets his feet upon the docks of the new world for the first time. With his nation of origin distraught by war and disease, he has come to America to make a new living for himself, away from the ails from which he has escaped.
He is a long, long way from home.
Last edited:
Reactions:
List
