Hawkflesh

Hawkflesh

"Please, don't help me!"
Faith, what a waste of time.

Hawkflesh had never trucked with the gods or spirits but here he was, fresh off the boat not two days and approaching the heart of Sonshan and there hopefully, a way to rid himself of his curse.

Euphemia had been right and was ready to die to help him but he was not going to let that place take her if he could help it. So here he was, halfway around the world and in a city full of people. He would need to be fast, he could not allow it to take anyone while he was here and it was already the second day.

Pushing past the crowds he approached the seat of learning, the Golden College. Where Sonshan's best and brightest gorged on knowledge taken from around the world. Here, certainly, there would be something. Some clue to how he might finally be free of his curse.

The great hall was wonderous and while the massive skeleton of some four legged beast long given to death loomed above him he set his eyes lower trying to find anyone he thought might be able to tell him how to start looking.

There was one, a woman in robes hemmed in blue that seemed to be walking with purpose. Figuring that she might be one to at least know her way about Hawkflesh made a beeline for her until he caught her at the entrance to two massive ivory clad stacks of parchment.

"Excuse myself, Missus." His Sonshan was not the strongest, he had to make do with what he was able to learn along the way.
"I was help if you could!"

@Kuuga
 
It was often called the Golden College by outsiders. And it made sense. The Mountain was golden. The Throne was golden. The door to learning was yellow and gilded. Only natural. She was attending to ceremonies of her own.

The Gods feast. But only one eats. The empty offering bowl beneath her robes remembered.

The upper reaches of one of the attics had been infested by a most delicious snack. Once It was fed, she found that a lot of the urgency disappeared from her mind. Still, she liked moving with purpose. Making your step bend to your will was only the first step to bending the path and then the fork.

The words came in broken. Foreign. She paused mid step, fabric, still soft from the trip, flowing around her as she moved. The Elf she saw seemed troubled. Something about his pressence felt half eaten. Not a good omen.

„Help“ She said correct. Tasting the word for herself.

She looked behind him not because something was there, but because it felt like something should be. A dutiful cleric of all gods, Kuuga picked up trade tongue long ago. It was easier to eat once invited to dinner.

„This is a place of help, yes.“ She gave the slightest bow, unsure of his station. It was unusual for outsiders to be this deep unless sponsored, so he must've had a benefactor. She didn't want improper form to mar the interaction.

He who hungered for words would like this man. Shame it was Kuuga who got to witness it instead. Still, his hunger would be honored.

„Are you looking for a way forward or a way out?“
 
Relief washed over him. This short helpful woman spoke the traders tongue and he was glad of that little bit of luck and slight though her motions were his sharp eyes noted her bow and her look over his shoulder.

"Please, I am not worthy of that."
He was certainly not worthy of a handshake much less a bow.
"You ask a very adequate question."
Looking about he decided perhaps it would be better to not speak so openly.

"May we speak somewhere less crowded? My trouble is, of a personal sort and I need... guidance."
It was the best he could do, it was still hard for him to speak of it. He had spent so long ignoring the and running from the damned thing.

The noise, even the quiet hum of mild chatter from the background, was getting to him.

@Kuuga
 
Tension seemed to wash out of the foreigner. Good.

„You are correct.“ She said softly. „Worthiness was not asked.“

She took a moment to think before looking to the side. The hall was abuzz with sounds of mouth and paper. Nodded. It was understood. No more bows as she simply moved to a more suitable place. „There is a room I use.“ She would explain it without explaining. „It was meant for records that don't wish to be written. It only keeps dust and silence now.“

She moved with certainty as she went for the room in question. Air, people, parchment – they would all part in her way. She was just important enough for access. And just undesirable enough to avoid.
 
"That's ominous."
Hawkflesh said as he followed the short woman into the small room. The smell of old assaulted his nose, as if he had breathed a fistful of dust bunnies. The room was large but relatively bare. Plain walls and no windows, a secret place indeed.

"Charming place."
Stalling was not something he was proud of but here he was, doing just that at least he refused to start fidgeting. He could not abide fidgeting.

"The thing is, I'm cursed."
There, feeling better already.

@Kuuga
 
As she led them in, she wouldn't use the room for anything other than a space. There would be no need for comfort. She didn't flinch at his initial comments. He could think what he liked. She could recognize hunger, little else mattered. Once the door closed behind the Elf, she would hear him.

It was not hunger for words after all. Honzui provides! Her lips pulled into a hungry smile, one that she hoped was encouraging.

„Sonshan does not fear curses“ Reverent. „You're in the right place.“ She moved to a nearby table and produced an offering bowl from within the folds. Setting the table with great care. If the unease in the foreigner's eyes was anything to go by, this would be a feast proper.

„Here,“ Finger tracing the rim of the bowl. „They eat them.“ There was no need for malice or curiosity. There was only certainty. Maw eventually closed around all things. It was only a matter of time.

„Some are eaten raw. Others ferment. All in the preparation.“ And she turned to him, waiting.
 
That was unexpected.
"Eat curses... as in..."
He half gestured to his own mouth.
"Proper eat!"

Was this woman serious?
"How does that work exactly?"
He was beginning to feel that perhaps this might have been a bad idea. Despite his misgivings he approached the table.

@Kuuga
 
Kuuga blinked slowly. She wasn't used to outsiders. Everyone knew Honzui was the hunger. Her world small enough to never question the undeniable fact. Still, she kept her calm, speaking soothingly as she might to children. „Yes.“ With a nod to boot. „Proper eat.“

She turned her gaze back to the bowl atop the table. Center stage. Empty. Expectant, but patient. She touched it once again before a hand disappeared into the folds of her her sleeve. She pulled out a small chain. Once heavy and likely lengthy, it was cracked and blackened, reduced to but three links. He who hungered for words taught her the significance. The lesson of the first leash.

„You aren't asked to die.“ She let the leash rest on the tabletop, next to the emptiness „You are not asked to suffer. Only to offer that which clings.“ She moved aside to clear a path for him there.

„You may hold it. Speak to it. Or whatever feels right.“ She shrugged, an imperfect scholar, bothered by her shortcomings. „I've learned that it works different for everyone.“

„You need but show it what haunts you. A name. A place. A moment. The thing that feeds your curse.“ Her hands folded under cloth, disappearing from view. For this next part she was but a watcher. This next moment was holy.

„If it stirs the Hunger.“ She warned gently. „You will know.“
 
It took a moment for him to register what she was saying and honestly he did not believe that it would not hurt. He simply was not that lucky.

"Oh yeah, that simple?"

Sitting down he made sure his sword was out of the way and leaned it against the table.
"So..."
He placed his hands on either side of the storage bowel that devoured the chain.
"I need to, show it right?"
How on earth did he do that?

"Well, it happens when I sleep. Sometimes. I find myself in this place, a forest. There's these, things, hands and they hunt I suppose is the word."
He'd never spoken about it at length except with Euphemia and he did not need to explain what it was to him.

"They, they take you away if the grab you. I've seen it."
He'd heard it, voices that became nothing in moments.

@Kuuga
 
She could hear the lack of belief in his voice. There was no nourishment there. No matter, fasting was valuable. It prepared the body for the meal entire. All previous impurities gone, only the empty remained. Ready to embrace. So she became a statue. Did not interrupt. Did not even attempt to breathe deeply. The stillness was perfect.

Forest. Hands. All things she'd heard before – but when he spoke about how it took him... There was a meal there. She hoped he wasn't looking when she bared teeth. Not in a smile. No.

„Yes.“ Softly, measuring. „That is a curse.“

The bowl remained quiet. The chain refused to bind. The air around grew still, as something stopped breathing to hear better. Kuuga stepped closer, his tired voice an unexpected condiment. She could almost taste the nutmeg of it.

„You don't need to explain further. To either of us.“ She produced a smooth black stone and held it out. As she did, behind her, the man could see multiple long necks. Faces human. Only one had an open mouth. Nearly translucent. Swaying without rhythm. Hard to track. And behind him she could almost see hands grabbing the air. Rot.

„You've shown something. That may be enough.“

„Now we wait.“
 
Gods below and all their horrors what the fuck had he gotten himself into.

The air changed, got stale like the forest, these faces, full of emptiness, like a hole that begs to be filled with something, anything. A great vast darkness that hungered.

It was too similar to be coincidence and that frightened him into a startle.
"The fuck is happening?"
He spouted as his chair jumped a little as he jerked in reaction to the appearance of the many faces and one with a mouth open like a vacuous thing. Nothing living in its features that he recognised.

Without realising it his hand was already going for his sword!
He did not know what he had expected, a consultation or perhaps some kind of cleansing ritual but this, this was dark and wholly evil to his senses.
"What are those things?"

@Kuuga
 
The faces faded. The stillness would not. Kuuga watched him without pity. A quiet understanding. She had seen fire before, and simply needed to know what had been burned.

„That wasn't all of it.“ At last, she spoke. „You didn't give everything. Or maybe not all could be taken.“ Voice still kind, but heavier now. Prayer of stone. She looked at the bowl, remembering the shape of hunger.

„What follows you is strong. Old. Hungry in its way.“ She offered recognition. „But what follows me is stronger.“

She didn't seem phased by his hand going for the sword. Still kept a respectful distance.

„Your curse hunts you.“ She weighed it against her own heart. „But perhaps mine can hunt it.“
 
There was more, there was the part he had never told anyone. There was what happened to the others.

Five of them went into that forest and only he came out.
"It took Storkwax first. After he disappeared we were lost, he always kept us together. He was a good leader.
After him went Crowpitch, unwilling to retreat he charged the damned things, spat curses as they took him until his voice faded to nothing."
He was there again, not remembering but reliving.
"When it was down to three Finchleaf tried to offer us to appease the forest. Said we had committed some wrongness that needed to be righted. We left him, ran. I didn't turn around when I heard him scream.
At last it Warblewheat and myself.
I was shaking, I don't think I had ever been so afraid of anything. They came out of the dark when we were too tired to keep going. I wanted to live, I just..."
He hung his head for the shame of it.
"I cut his leg so he couldn't run and I left him. Some time later, when my lungs felt they would burst I realized that I had made it out somehow but it followed me. Hunted me, no matter how far I go."

Warblewheats vice was the one he heard the loudest. alling him every name and insult under the sun.
He was right, he was all the things he said and Hawkflesh felt at that moment that perhaps it was some justice that he was tortured, for leaving his comrade behind like that.

Without raising his head he asked.
"Is that enough. Can I be rid of this now?"

@Kuuga
 
Kuuga had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep her face stone. She wanted the silence to be sacred and meaningful, but all her effort had gone to masking the unease of his words. She would have to kill this young part of herself one day, but not yet. So she stood mute. Wouldn't break when he named the others. Not when he confessed the leg. No movement or emotion, only a witness.

When he was properly broken. Wide open. She would step forward slowly. „Honzui is not yet strong enough to swallow the Forest.“ Her eyes were wide and her voice full of hope, expectation. „Not yet. But It tasted your fear. And stirred.“ Another step, priest at the altar of pain. „Whatever hunts you...fears to be eaten.“

And an offering, no longer a stone. The stone was gone now, folded back up into cloth. A hand.

„Help me raise It.“ She said. „Let It open Its mouth wide enough.“ She saw both the sword undrawn and the man behind. „So the Forest can burn.“ And finally, gentle.

„So you never have to cut another leg again.“
 
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Truth was a lot harder to admit than lies.
A lie would be that he did not feel the hairs on the back of his neck give warning as the woman approached. A lie would be that he did not think about cutting her down and fleeing the city because he recognised something in the very real power she trucked with.
The truth however was that a big part of him wanted this and he was tired of treking half way across the world to find a solution to a problem he never should have had.
The truth was that he knew the only reason clever people ever got manipulated is because they let themselves be and played dumb after the fact.
The truth was that for the past few months he had been dreaming of returning to Nothern Ilica, to Plumhollow and to Rhosyn.

She would ask him to do something, something perhaps far worse than he already had and in exchange this being, this Honzui whatever it was, was going to destroy the forest.

But that still left Honzui.
Deliberately he looked up and cast a dark eye on the woman's face, she was the image of piety and he did not believe it for a second.
Gently his hand slipped from his sword.

"What do I have to do?"

@Kuuga
 
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