Feather

“Kian?”

Kian groggily sat up and let out a quiet gasp of pain. Gentle hands helped him come to a proper sitting position and a mug was pressed to his lips. He drank the warm honey liquid and found he was face to face with Yin who looked down at him sternly and with a slight frown.

“What’s wrong?” he asked blinking as the slight pain in his chest and abdomen faded to a dull ache.

“When do you want to do this?”

“Where’s Haung?” Kian tilted his head to the side to look over her shoulder.

“He’s getting the necessary equipment to burn off that damned seal of yours. Kian! Answer me.”

“As soon as Haung gets back.”

“Then you’ll answer me?”

“That is my answer.”

Yin sighed and moved out of his sight. Kian closed his eyes. He had noticed that since the encounter with Sephir he hadn’t really taken stock of his surroundings. And he didn’t want to start now. He wanted to block out everything he could from now till his inevitable demise. When had he become so morbid?

Kian smiled grimly and heard Haung and Yin whispering fiercely somewhere in the cave. His eyes snapped open and he climbed to his feet letting the soft woolen blanket, one of his friends had covered him with, fall to the dusty hard cold ground.

His breathing was jagged and he stumbled around and suddenly Haung was there, with a firm but gentle grip on his arm, supporting him and pressing a cloth bag into his hand. He said clearly with authority, “Those are for later when we get you to the right location, but for now…” Haung pressed his open palm to Kian’s forehead. “Rest.”

“I can’t,” Kian feebly protested but the words were barely out of his mouth before he collapsed.

When he came to Haung was gone and Yin informed him that he had gone to warn everyone to evacuate the caves and leave the sanctuary. Kian noticed with a shock that the edges of his vision was dulled, everything was dulled and he didn’t taste the food he was given, didn’t see Yin’s grim bearing and barely suppressed tears, didn’t feel the soft clean tunic she passed him nor hear the terrible mournful howling of the wind outside that would’ve normally set his teeth on edge.

He barely heard Yin say, “We’ve received information about Sephir’s location about an hour ago. He was spotted on the east border heading towards his keep. It’s…it’s heavily guarded Kian, and most of it through living flesh and not mere spells that my kind can easily tear through. You’ll have to burn off the seal just on the outskirts of the keep and…Dear Loushi! Kian!”

Kian was jerked out of his dream like surrealistic state. Suddenly everything was too sharp and real. He blinked but the light stayed harsh and he realized that they were outside on the edge of a half dead meadow.

Kian held up a hand to his burning cheek and blinked up at Yin in shock and relief.

“Thank you.”

“Finally! A real response! I know you want to get this over with Kian, but I can’t let you go to your death already half dead. You decided to do this, at least have the decency to show some emotion around those you’ll be leaving behind…” Yin burst out crying and his grabbed him around the waist.

“My little dark elf friend! You are mad, brave but mad. Can’t you let this scheme of yours rest; there’s no guarantee it will work.”

“If I do I’ll live with the guilt of running away with me all my life. The thoughts of what if’s will suffocate me.” Kian awkwardly patted her back and she released him.

Her face was chillingly harsh when she let go and started off across the meadow towards the thick line of trees in the distance. “If that’s what you decided dark elf, then I must do my duty and keep my word to my brother, to my clan, to this whole damned forest. I will help save it but you must know that I won’t do so because I want to. Follow me then, to your death.”

Kian caught up with her but her long legs soon set her ahead again and when they reached a thick ring of trees it had been three hours and they had not spoken one word.
“Here I leave you dark elf. I will pray for your safety and if that is impossible then I will pray that you defeat Sephir and your soul leaves this earth with no regrets.” Yin quickly stepped away from him and melted into the cool shadows. “Farewell friend, you will never be forgotten.”

“Yin…” Kian whispered and for one long minute he stood without a sound, without motion. He let out a deep sigh, fingered the tunic he wore and pulled it off. He emptied the cloth bag Haung had given him and let it drop to the ground while he inspected the simple flint, flat rough stone and the sharp scalpel that hummed with a curious energy in the palm of his hand.

He hesitated for a few minutes before he created a hollow in the ground and surrounded it with rocks. He collected dry twigs and leaves and grass and after placing them in the hollow he struck the flint against the stone above it and the grass quickly caught alight. After he had a small fire going he wrapped the handle of the scalpel with his tunic and tentatively placed the glinting tip of the scalpel as close to the flames as possible without burning himself and he smiled at the irony of such an action.

Before long the heat penetrated through the cloth and he had to pull his hand back wincing. And before he knew what he was doing he had pressed the hot humming metal against the seal on his arm. The seal reacted immediately to the heat and he watched as the otherworldly ink ran in curious black crimson rivulets down his skin. The arrows seemed melted away and when the pain was too much he let the scalpel drop to the ground gasping as the heat of the metal had seemed to increase with time.

But why was he bleeding? Was it blood? His skin should be scorched, red with raw flesh. Kian looked down at his arm where the crimson liquid kept on pouring from the sizzling wound where the tattoo had been.

And he watched in fascinated horror as the skin on his elbow ripped open where the liquid had run down it. He bit down a scream that clawed mercilessly at his throat. But he clenched his jaw as he forced himself to watch the crimson scourge defy gravity and course upwards, like feelers, bursting open skin at strange intervals along their path. Some split in two, three, four and disappeared from view to ravage his back and others traveled along his chest creating weeping interconnecting webs.

For a moment he was completely calm, cut off from the pain, seeing it as an outsider, merely fascinated and slightly sickened. He marveled at the speed of the transformation and gave an impromptu chuckle as the skin on his elbow split open further revealing the needle sharp point of a strangely deformed bone. It lengthened into curved claw and he gave a howl of pain and doubled over as he felt the burst skin along his spine break open further and he knew that the same was happening there. Similar growths along his spine, his elbows, and along his knuckles grew with alarmingly increasing speed and he collapsed to his full length on the ground, the pain so terrifying he could scarcely think.

The pain was everywhere, and transformations even more terrible than the claw bones were happening all over his body.

But worse than all of this was the fact that he was laughing. His tears intermingled with his blood and he felt a wonderful satisfaction and blood lust work into system. And as he lay laughing and bleeding he fled from the horror of what he had become. He fled into a dark cold pocket of his mind, he barricaded himself in but he could not ignore the alien yet satisfying emotions that stole into his cell and thrust upon him the full horror of the curse as it spread it’s inky web across his mind and held him fast.

I can’t escape this; I can’t…find myself.

Kian screamed when he realized that he was no longer THERE. He was gone, he was… he had finally lost himself amongst the chaotic tumult of his new mind.