Percussive beats bleed so slowly into his awareness that he doesn’t notice them until they begin to reverberate between the voids of his ribcage. Shadows that linger in the edges of his vision elongate, warbling into silhouettes until the walls fade away and leave behind only the echo of incomprehensible movement.

His vision fades in and out; a blur between reality and delusion. It’s all muted by a gloomy miasma; a comforting but unsettling haze which has no name; a presence which sinks deep into his bones; which perforates his mind and assures a confused and skeptical part of him that it is okay.

Give in.

There’s a voice somewhere, but it distorts; and no sooner has he acknowledged its presence does he forget about it as if it were never spoken. Whispers like the sound of running water murmur around him. A white noise that fills every crevice of his attention.

It’s overwhelming, but his joints are frozen. Locked in place.

He can’t move.

Could he ever?

Something brushes against his leg.

A chill blooms up his spine until its cold tendrils bleed into his throat and clog his airway. His chest tightens, the pressure building throughout each and every limb. The feeling heavies his mere existence until it is nigh unbearable. Gravity itself wants to crush him into the earth.

Let go.

And he is tired, so he does.

The last of his self-awareness slips away with the feeling of vertigo. The sensation of falling, collapsing into the void until he is upright once more. All of the tension dissipates, leaving him weightless in the midst of faceless shadows and haunted miasma; and as the fog of confusion unclouds his vision, he recognizes the plaza of Darkveil.

It is decorated in bleak colours that Caedes instinctively recognizes despite their usual flamboyance; around him, the faceless crowd chatters in broken language that has never, and will never, mean anything; but he thinks he understands it as common. The thrum, thrum, thrum of a percussive instrument hits each beat like the drum of a heart; the jangle of dancer’s bells in the distance a rattle of chains.

It feels like a memory that isn’t quite right.

Echoes bleed past him, their laughter cawing like ravens as they fade into a faceless crowd that gradiates into a hazy fog. They are long gone, but Caedes still hears the corvid beckoning from far away while he watches through half-lidded eyes the steady flicker of the candle at her alter.

---

The silence is broken by the pitter-pattering feet of a visitor; an obsidian wyrm rushes through the halls. It looks about frantically. It lowers its head, snuffling loudly at the rug, before scrambling across the hard floors towards a door near the angle of the hall.

Thud!

Caligo shakes its head, nostrils flaring as it makes a circle in front of the door, then outstretches its body. It sinks its claws heedlessly into the wood, scratching urgently at the surface of it. It opens its mouth, making a low grunt, before dropping onto the floor and pushing its legs under the crack of the door. It stretches its talons apart, scratching uselessly at the air, as if reaching for something or someone.

It doesn't have the words to speak— Charlotte does— but she is back with Caedes, where he's collapsed, and the only person Caligo can think to call on is inside the door.

After a moment it recoils and launches itself back at the door. Frantic scratching, an irritating ‘skthskthskthskth’ that picks up in its urgency, is paired with the snapping of jaws at the doorknob, rattling it when the wyrm’s canines scrape across bronze.

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Trapped!
Participants: Two or more
Location: Anywhere
Post Requirements: 5 posts per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +1 Mystical Archive Ticket, +1 Mysterious Reward
Description: You find yourself as the main character in a Black Harvest story! Write out a spooky or scary story where you find yourself trapped in a dangerous or suspenseful manner. The location, villains, and details of the story are completely up to you, as long as this year's theme is obvious and consistent throughout the topic

---

_{Pet(s): Charlotte (Prismatic Spider), Caligo (Obsidian Wyrm)}

The moonlight feels colder than it used to.

Everything seems to feel a little colder than it used to, nowadays– the air in Darkveil lacks the bite it used to have, the oppressive heat from the days before Drakolt was whittled down to a crater reduced to something just a little less torrid. Autumn feels colder, somehow, even set up against the winter Askr first emerged into nearly a year ago– the night, too, has a sting it didn’t use to have, harsh as a threatened scorpion desperate to defend itself in the moon-pale sands of Zeinav. It’s harrowing and bitter and Askr can’t say he likes it, can’t say he’ll ever get used to somehow managing to feel cold all the way in the hottest corner of the continent, but there is nothing he can do to change it.

There is nothing he can do to change a lot of things, now, and that is merely one of them. It is a… sobering thought, the kind of thing that doesn’t sit well, like blood settling in water, but his only option is to… try and accept it.

That does not mean it is easy.

And that is what keeps him up, now, sitting on the floor at some unknown point in the evening, haloed in the moonlight pouring in through the half-shuttered window, Yggdrasil sitting dormant on the floor before him. The runes engraved on the gilded blade gleam in the pale light, practically glowing, as if they’re lit up with some ancient power, as if they mean anything, as if they could do anything– as if they are anything more than mere decoration, a blacksmith’s finishing touch.

Askr finds himself wishing they meant something rather often, now– that perhaps these ancient words he can’t understand hold a spell of protection, of healing, a gift from the gods somewhere within them, the power to turn back time. He knows it’s fruitless, but some deep and foolish part of him hopes that if he stares at those engravings for long enough, they’ll start to make sense– that everything will start to make sense. That he can change something. Fix something.

…Ah. Askr finds himself wishing that the mere act of wishing did not feel so… hopeless.

It didn’t always feel like that.

He’s half-tempted to shove his sword away from himself, dismiss it back to the void of space it lurks in when he’s startled by the pattering of feet, the scraping of talons against wood, the urgent, desperate rattling of the bronze doorknob, light from the hall beyond flickering with the sparse cut of shadows. Askr immediately jumps to his feet, grabbing for Yggdrasil, his whole body on high alert as he moves to open the door, wondering what could be there–

…only to find… that wyrm Caedes has. Caligo, he thinks.

Askr tilts his head.

“...What’s wrong?” he asks, voice soft, quiet, as if the little creature can give him any answer.

The Rookery is a sight that Caedes is intimately familiar with. It’s a place that he’s admitted, to no one but himself, feels like home. Felt like home. Illusion of his own mind be damned, it held a breadth of kinship within its walls and hid those who he truly came to care for in the aftermath of personal tragedy.

But even with a count of five, he could still pretend that he wasn’t quite as shattered as he truly was; but when the count ticked six, he just couldn’t keep it going. So, he finally traded lazy smiles for tired eyes and finally let the numbing emptiness sink into his bones.

It’s a hollow feeling.

It’s the kind of hollowness that he thinks must be associated with the undead, but that he never truly felt until recently. It’s the kind of emptiness that feeds frustration and blame; the kind that he can’t justify; the kind that makes his body feel heavy when the silence gets loud. It’s the kind that he’s swallowed before, that he’s never let hold the reins out of his own pride.

Now that he’s let it, though, it’s what wraps its claws around his throat and heavies his stomach. It’s what keeps him from rest, knowing that once again, he could do nothing; and it's what blurs the flames of once five, now six, candles sitting on a windowsill. It’s a void that eats away the guilt, the anger, and the grief until it has left nothing behind but a distant fog behind his eyes that he finds hard to blink away.

Still…

He thinks he would take that mind-numbing apathy over what lies before him when his vision finally clears. The sound of horror that he makes is muffled; caught in his airway when he pulls back from the silence; or maybe he didn’t make a sound at all.

The longer you wait, the closer they are.

The upturned tables are wrong; shadows slicked off splintering wood, glinting in bloodstained moonlight. The print of a hand, bled into the wood near the staircase, tells him more than anything else possibly could. His vision wavers, blurring motionless silhouettes at the damaged bar counter; and he doesn’t realize he’s been backing away until his heel slips from under him. He collapses over something tinted crimson in the moonlight, but can’t halt his seizing heart for long enough to dare glance.

How long do you think you can hide behind them?

The feeling of falling persists even when he thinks he should have hit the ground; and when he finally blinks, he finds himself staring at a flickering candle. The beating of the drum keeps thrumming; they’re footsteps growing ever closer.

A sickening wave of nausea and familiarity overtakes him all at once when he recognizes his family’s ancestral altar sitting before him. Something keeps him from turning his head, even when he hears the squeak of the doorknob that his father never had time to fix, and knows exactly who is on the other side.

How long until they, too, turn?

---

When the door opens without warning, Caligo falls forwards, thumping onto the floor like a limp noodle between Askr’s feet.

His claws scrabble against the floor as he pulls himself beneath Askr, through the doorframe, and proceeds to circle around one of his legs. He sinks his teeth into the cuff of the young man’s sock and runs a circle around him until his long body is back in the hallway. He tugs; and when he meets resistance, Caligo lets go and patters several steps down the hall with rushed and clumsy seal-like bounds.

He turns his head to look at Askr before rushing back towards him to repeat the process— regardless of if he has even moved— this time, grabbing the hem of his pants and pulling. He utters tiny, persistent growls from his throat as the fabric grows taut in his jaws; and then he releases, thumping Askr’s shin with his tail in his rush to urgently bumble back down the hall.

He turns to look at Askr, eyes wide, legs stamping back and forth against the hardwood restlessly, desperately trying to get across a message that he simply cannot speak with words.

Follow, follow, follow.

There is something wrong.

There is only so much emotion that can be conveyed in the face of an animal, only so many expressions a creature can make, and so when trying to converse with one outside their own, they must turn to their claws, their teeth, anything else. It is easier for Askr to understand– easier to sense the urgency in the screech of tiny talons against wood, the panic in pacing circles, the tugging, the growling, the urging. Caligo cannot speak a word in any tongue Askr understands, and yet, he somehow knows exactly what this tiny creature is trying so desperately to tell him.

Something's not right. Something bad has happened. Follow, follow– help.

And so as the obsidian-scaled wyrm turns to face him, claws tip-tapping against hardwood with a clicking urgency, like a metronome, like a clock, silently begging Askr to follow, what else is left for him to do but oblige?

He distantly feels that horrible coldness taking root in his ribs, that pressure nestling around the glass heart that sits within a cage of chalk-spun bones, that same feeling from the fight against the God of Cycles, from everything he learned after it– each breath feels out of reach, like it ghosts against his fingertips, dancing around his hand but never ducking down to where he can grasp it. It’s the kind of thing he knows would be maddening if he stopped and let himself feel it, let himself be lost in choking on air and feelings too big for his body, but he does not have time to feel it, so he does not. Caligo is urging him to help with something, and while Askr knows it is something bad, something as insurmountable as the heights of Drakolt used to be, he cannot let himself get lost in looking for ledges.

He must be calm, and be good, and do everything he can to fix what is wrong before it is too big for his hands. That is his only option.

Even so, nothing prepares him for the sight that waits for him as he follows Caligo down the hall and past the ajar door into one of the rooms– only to find the familiar, limp form of Caedes Oleander draped over the floor on his front. His face is impossible to see, shrouded by the veil of his pale hair, his arms useless beside him– as if sleep struck him as suddenly as an assassin’s blade and dragged him under, allowing no room for negotiation.

Askr bites his lip.

He kneels at Caedes’s side, gentle in the way he turns the man over onto his side, brushing hair away from his face, only to flinch as soon as his eyes lock onto Caedes’s own– ink-black and infinite as the space between stars, no traces of pale blue or scarlet to be found. They are alien. Unfamiliar.

Askr tastes something metallic.

“...Charlotte,” he begins slowly. “What happened…?”

“_Askr…” Charlotte’s voice is tiny when she finally speaks; her small frame trembles minutely as she stands dutifully near the fallen changeling. “_{I don’t…}” she trails off, looking at Caedes when Askr turns him over. Caligo sits on his other side, unsure what to do with his energy save shift back and forth between his short legs.

“_{We just got back from the Marsh Flats and he collapsed.}” Charlotte finally manages, “_{I didn’t…}” Another pause. Flower petals trail across the floor near where Caedes lay, presumably from a pink blossom tied to one side of Charlotte’s head— now lacking nearly all of its petals from her restless pacing.

“_{I don’t know what to do, Askr— this has never happened before. What if…}” Charlotte lowers herself closer to the floor, tucking her eight legs close to herself. She looks at the floor and doesn’t finish her statement; but the unspoken question sits heavy in an unusually weighty atmosphere.

She perceives the interference of something troubling; and the void opens, eight eyes reflecting glints of the faintest light from a plane unknowable to man or beast.

The shadows sit long despite the lack of light sources in Caedes' room, converging beneath the changeling in fading gradients; and as Askr’s shadow passes over them, it melds effortlessly into their clawing tendrils. There’s a subtle noise hiding within the silence; the creaking of elongated limbs as they shift back, and forth, and back, and forth; and the hushed whispers of something from afar growing vaguely more noticeable the longer any physical contact is made.

Neither Charlotte, nor Caligo, seem to perceive it.

---

No, no, no, no, no...

Each footstep rattles his ribcage; and everything in him wants to run, but he already knows how this ends even if he tries. His throat tightens. The door opens, but the toxin has already sunk deep beneath his skin; a quiet part of him thinks that if he doesn't acknowledge what's behind him, it will go away. 

It won't; but maybe it will. He can't do this again.

A louder part of him screams to move; to fight; and it's that part of him that finally gets its way when the footsteps pause and the toxin in his blood finally subsides. Pale eyes flicker down to a familiar knife that sits on the alter before him; jeweled, embossed with worn silver.

He remembers this, too. History repeats itself.

It comes in one swift motion; and he uses the momentum of his rapid turn to swing the blade into his attacker; but it's intercepted in a rough grasp. Caedes almost immediately loses his grip on the knife. It clatters, but it splashes when it hits the earth; a detail that he never once notices. The changeling's expression becomes unreadable for a stuttered heartbeat; the pain of an iron grip on his wrist forgotten just briefly, transitioning instead into a single aching name.

"Zarius?"

It is difficult, for once, to try and manage any semblance of calm. Askr is usually the kind of person who is adept at internalizing, packaging away the things he isn’t sure how to manage so he can sort through them another time, poke away at foreign feelings and thoughts like a miner pokes at stone when everything is said and done. But this is not something he can carefully stow away for later, not something he can tell himself he’ll examine some other day; the panic that washes over him with Charlotte’s nearly-whispered explanation is all-consuming.

His hands shake, even as they settle against Caedes’s shoulders– his throat feels tight, like he’s found a way to choke on air. This is something he knows, something he remembers; he remembers dust-choked air and narrow passageways, too-long shadows, a total lack of open space. He remembers fear so blinding he’d crashed to his knees, so overpowering his systems all seemed to fail him.

(And still, he remembers two gentle hands against his face, the warmth of firm fingers, the whispered instructions of breathe with me, that’s it, you’re okay.)

He’s okay. He will be okay. He just has to breathe.

Askr manages a shuddering inhalation, his eyes briefly screwing shut before he opens them once more, looking down at Caedes’s still form with fearful conviction. He knows the meaning packed within Charlotte’s words, the implication held there, but he– he does not want to entertain them. He knows it is… possible, but he does not want it to be.

Once was enough.

He will not let this city take anything from him again.

“...It will be okay,” Askr says, and he is not Nyr, not a doctor, not a life-saver, not the kind of person who can cure worries as well as wounds, but he thinks of him, of his kind eyes and soft voice, and he hopes that is enough to emulate him. “It… it will be. I’ll fix this. I– I can.”

He hopes neither Caligo nor Charlotte notice the way his palm trembles against Caedes’s shoulder, hopes they cannot hear the fear creeping around in the undertones of his voice. He does not want to scare them. They are small and there is much they cannot do, and they asked for his help, and they are depending on him and he needs to make sure that they know their faith is not misplaced. He has to fix this. He has to–

To…

…

“...what’s that sound…?”

The shock doesn’t have time to subside.

Boxes splinter against Caedes’ back, collapsing when the changeling careens through them. A startling pain, far departed from the dream, crashes through his system like a bolt of lightning. A wooden plank beneath his shoulder blade collapses, driving splinters against his spine. He rolls off to the side, dazed, pinpricks against his skin causing just enough pain to keep him grounded.

I am the only thread holding you between life and death.

Caedes holds his head as he pulls himself onto his knees; he looks over his shoulder, but he’s gone. Panicked breaths catch in his throat, but he recognizes the same moon from the warehouse last winter— these same fucking boxes — these… Mei recognizes her gloves, the way her pale hair frames her face when she holds her head low.

Particulates of dust glint in the pale moonlight that shutters through closed windows from her fall. A shadow flickers above her head, turning her gaze upwards; and her crimson eyes narrow sharply when she meets gold.

Do not forget that without me, he would have killed you.

---

Charlotte nods when Askr assures them it will be okay, her movements slow and lethargic; loss has been felt by all, even those who struggle to emulate it. She would like to think the best, but she has had as difficult a time understanding, as she had accepting. She doesn't know how to fix it. She does not know how Askr will fix it. She does not know what to do.

It is, perhaps, lucky that her small body cannot truly process the breadth of her feelings past the small tremors in her long, thin legs; so that Askr does not worry for her, too. She hopes he does not have to; she can be good, and she can be strong, she…

“_Huh?” Charlotte answers back; she falls quiet, listening to the sound of Caligo twisting his body into a coil next to the fallen assassin. His claws tip-tap against the wood just briefly, before he settles them on the length of his tail and looks anxiously at the young man nearby.

She listens carefully, but she doesn’t hear anything abnormal past the sounds of the home.

“_{… what sound?}” She asks, looking up at Askr.

The sound is there, though; its presence growing minutely more keen by the second. Like the steady thrum of a loom, it creaks; a ceaseless back and forth. The shadows beneath the fallen changeling and a young man forged of the earth’s essence flicker, darken in their hues, gradually becoming more and more palpable to the plane of existence in which they reside.

The transition is subtle; it’s incomplete; an illusion that causes the shadows beneath the young man’s feet to ripple, ink-like in their viscosity. A clinging toxin whose venom is quiet and subtle; ever-so-quietly attempting to induce Askr into a similar trance; where the shadows elongate, the walls begin to fade away, and where the scraping thrum of a loom sounds like the steady beat of a heart.

Another quiet spike of dread digs its claws within Askr’s chest as he processes Charlotte’s confusion, as he watches her go quiet, listening, waiting for any sign of the persistent sounds, as if she cannot hear them– as if the creaking isn’t growing ever louder, the whispers heightening in volume with each second that passes them by. He watches, waiting, searching for any sign that maybe she’s heard something strange from the far reaches of the house, even if it isn’t the same thing, but it does not come. As far as he can tell, she hears nothing beyond the scrabbling of Caligo’s claws against hardwood, the shifting of his scales as he coils up like a threatened snake.

Charlotte is polite in her confusion, but she is confused all the same.

“...oh,” he says quietly, because he does not know what else to say. It is difficult to think through the indecipherable whispers, through that steady creaking, back-and-forth, like an old rocking chair, like an unchecked wooden floorboard someone can’t keep their heel off of– ancient, all-consuming, back and forth, back and forth. “Ah. Um. Alright.”

He can feel his hand trembling a little where it still sits against Caedes’s shoulder, his fingers refusing to stay steady, panic steadily creeping back over him like the towering, spindly legs of a monster. Askr takes another shuddering breath, ignoring the tightness in his throat as he blindly searches for one of Caedes’s hands, slipping his own shaking fingers through the spaces between those cold, pale, limp ones and squeezing, searching for comfort in someone who isn’t even conscious to give it– in someone who needs Askr more than Askr needs him.

But as he holds onto Caedes’s hand, seeking refuge from those all-consuming sounds, they only grow louder– the shadows grow darker, longer, mystifying, like the precipice of sleep right before you go careening down into it. Askr knows he has to ignore it, that he has to stay awake, stay in this moment with Caedes and focus on bringing him back, but–

But–

The world ebbs away like the receding tide on a moonlit beach, like blue waters falling away from pale sand, like a memory of the last time things were good.

Askr cannot stop himself from slipping away.

---

And then the world comes back different.

The air is colder, somehow, as though autumn has given way to winter months early– pale slivers of light slip in through the scarce windows, the walls as cold and solemn as the world beyond them. It is not where he was a moment ago, and yet, Askr cannot shake the feeling that somehow, this is precisely where he needs to be.

He rises to his feet on unsteady legs, his gait slow as he wanders between halls forged from towers of boxes, searching for a trace of anything familiar in this place he’s never been. He can hear something, distantly, something that sounds like a struggle, and deep down Askr knows it is a bad idea to speak, to draw attention to himself, but as the seconds trickle by and the unease weighing on his shoulders grows ever heavier, he cannot resist quietly, hopefully calling out into the cold–

“...Mister Caedes…?”

Charlotte doesn’t really understand; but even when Askr agrees with her, the arachnid’s eight eyes linger on him for moments longer. “_{What do you hear?}” She asks hesitantly, trying to understand; but she’s not entirely sure if Askr heard her. She watches him squeeze Caedes’ hand, watches the way his breathing becomes irregular, and she continues, “Askr?” with concern lacing her small voice. “_Askr?”

But he doesn’t answer.

In fact, something is… wrong; even Caligo senses it, twisting around to look at Askr with wide eyes; Charlotte presses and presses, her voice growing a little bit louder as she scurries up to Askr; but she never does receive a reply before he slips away.

---

Without me, you would have meant nothing.

She’s certain something within her has broken; snapped like a twig beneath a guillotine. The world warbles between darkness and gloom; the silhouettes of the warehouse are just a dark blur until her limp figure collides with a beam nearby.

You would be just another name written in blood to wash from his hands.

Everything just sort of stops; she struggles to breathe, to hear, to move. She pleads with her body to cooperate, but it won’t.

“Zar…”

Fuck, it hurts to speak; his name breaks on her tongue, the silhouette of someone so trusted and familiar flickering between familiar forms; both winged, one feathered, one not; and both with stark, golden eyes.

You know this; and you still chase, despite knowing that you are prey.

Perhaps understandably in the state she’s in, Mei does not notice Askr’s presence; she doesn’t hear the name of her host when it’s tentatively called; nor does she see the way the shadows bind to Zarius like a puppet on the string.

Askr, though, might.

There’s the steady thrum. 

Louder, now; the creak of ancient limbs within the warehouse itself; and although the moonlight peeks through the window, breaking through the gloomy miasma that makes up this place, there is darkness. Darkness, perhaps, might be an understatement; the warehouse bleeds into a void— a nothingness which is still somehow occupied by a massive, lingering presence no different from a predator waiting in ambush.

She runs the shadows through too-long fingers; her hands are towering and many, their barely perceptible movement hidden by the dark, as she loosens the binds which hold the shadow mimicry; and then she breathes. 

It is a simple exhale; as if facing an unplanned inconvenience.

The imperceptible darkness grows heavy with the sound.

You... do not belong here.

The words hang in the air for what feels like a moment too long.

Askr pauses where he stands, lurking in the shadows of the boxes of this strange warehouse, lingering, waiting, searching for any traces of a change in the air, for an answer, and yet, he’s greeted with the same silence that’s hung over him since he blinked into this strange, otherworldly place. If Caedes is here, he cannot hear him— or if Caedes can hear him, Askr cannot hear him in turn. He is not sure which it is, and he knows better than to wait and try to find out; there is no merit in idling when he could find more fruitful answers.

He ventures further along, shoulders tense, body poised like a deer ready to run from the first glimpse of a predator in the dark, but he knows that when it comes down to it, there is nothing that can make him run from this place until he has found what he is searching for. He recognizes what fear is, the stranglehold it has on his heart, but he will not let it deter him. He refuses.

Askr will not leave this place, whatever it may be, without Caedes.

It doesn’t take long before the near-silence slips away, the creaking in the distance accompanied by the slowly heightening sounds of that struggle, by choked whispers and punched-out breath, and Askr quickens his pace until the almost-maze of boxes yield to an opening– slitted moonlight peering through windows, haloed around the silhouettes of two familiar frames: a woman with apple-red eyes and hair and skin as pale as snow, grief etched into every line of her face, and–

…

Charcoal skin, golden eyes– a recreation so close to perfect that it almost knocks Askr off his feet.

Almost.

There is something not right about the form of the Zarius standing there– shadows cling to him like a spider’s webs, and there is no warmth in his face, no recognition, like the familiarity is merely a mask. Even though it looks like him, painfully so, it is not him, and– and Askr knows it. He knows this is not Zarius, but that is Caedes– Mei, and she does not see him and he does not know why or what is going on, but–

You do not belong here.

He blinks.

The voice is resonant, with no clear origin, and yet it echoes all around him, spoken with contempt, with intent. He does not know where it comes from, but he knows, somehow, it is addressed to him.

“...Who are you?” he stops, glancing around for the voice’s source, trying to place its origin. “...Where is this? What… do you need Miss Mei for?”

The atmosphere darkens, tendrils of shade coiling at the edges before they collapse once more. Flickering miasma bubbles upon their impact and leaves gloom in its sticky wake as long legs erupt from the night, pulling strings of shadow taut as if reluctant to part. Yet, as it pulls away completely, the arachnid form is but a shadow pressed against a dirty warehouse wall.

Its long limbs create elongated shadows, leading back to the shadowed outline of a woman.

She appears cloaked in ink-like hair longer than her own figure. It drapes around her feet, the shadows spreading like ink against the surface, becoming liquid the longer they sit against the ground. Eight eyes flicker open, bright white against the shadows; and she gazes at Askr, silhouetted by an arachnid frame.

She does not open her mouth to speak, but the words echo around Askr, even as the fight between Mei and the shadowed mockery of Zarius continues, still seemingly puppeted by the void. A raindrop of inky blackness trails down her cheek, ultimately dripping onto the warehouse floor as the words reverberate around him.

Her voice strange and detached; a number of overlapping tone and pitch; which creates word in the atmosphere itself; but it is only audible to Askr in these moments as she interacts with him.

I am that which spins the threads,
She who watches from shadows,
Who houses souls found,
And mourns souls lost.

I am the dark which hides the moon,
The frost which withers in the chill of the night.
I am the passage of time which mortality so very seeks to abandon,
I am the transient, the inevitable.

Never once does she open her mouth; her presence is unsettling in its uncanniness; featureless, save for those eight eyes that it bears. Notably, she does not actually introduce herself past the aforementioned grandiose riddle.

Why does the tide need the moon?
Why does the spring need the winter?

Why does the falcon need the wind?

A pause. She stares without blinking.

… You do not belong here.

My business is not yours.

My web was not spun for you.

A strange sound reverberates throughout the warehouse; as though metal had collided with metal.

Wake and forget that which you have seen.

---

Mei slides her knees close; and a grievous pain flashes through her chest as she does so. Her eyes darken as she reaches out, trembling fingertips outstretched, desperately attempting to beckon the shadows around her to her aid; but they won’t listen. A part of her knew they wouldn’t. They flicker at the corners of her eyes, but never once close the distance in the moonlight; and it leaves a dreadfully cold feeling in the center of her aching chest.

Weak.

She breathes a shuddering breath; her vision is still warbling, darkening at the edges. Zarius’ silhouette blurs, and Mei narrowly drops to avoid his fist. She hears the crack against the beam above her head; and the sound reverberates through her very bones.

Just an arrogant child.