2018-11-29: See Seething Thing
- Log: 2018-11-29: See Seething Thing
- Cast: Yarobeleedt
- Where: Northern Steps of Elru
- Date: November 29th, 2018
- Summary: A day in the life of Yarobeleedt.
Excitement and trepidation filled the open air above. Open air above the rocky tunnel of his own make, where he waited.
He cowered.
No, he waited.
Again. Waiting. That was all he did.
Everyone did a lot of that, but he felt he waited for far more. He felt he waited for far longer than even those who lived longer than himself.
It was the day they all waited for.
A day where the raucous cheers would not be in the form of the bellows of triumphant soldiers, but the clattering of steel of those without.
Oh, the clattering of steel. How he grew to hate that sound. How he grew to loathe those colors.
He cowered. No, he waited.
How distant he had to be in which to see the colors and hear the clattering, and know there was naught to do but wait.
Wait, wait, wait. How long did he wait? He was always eager to listen, to know. He instead had to wait. Wait, wait, wait, within the endless white.
The waiting came to an end with triumphant news. They found Her. They found Her!
He didn't find Her.
He was too busy in the endless white. That same white patch, for decades, seeing the colors and hearing the clatters.
How he loathed them. How he wasn't to do a thing to them until the time was right.
They found Her. They were to bring Her back. The humans were nothing but sitting ducks. They would take Her! He would take Her. He waited to see Her.
That was all he heard. She was great. She was powerful. She was kind. She was everything.
She was there. He went there.
Then they threw him back.
He wanted nothing to do with the colors and clatters of those without steel bodies wearing outward lies of their strength.
He wanted nothing to do with the weak, pitiful, worthless humans who were already dying in droves to the Metal Beasts outside.
He wanted nothing to do with his own kin who brought honor upon their own kind by facing the humans head-on.
It was all beneath him... literally.
He went to the fortress, through the very sky. No simple human missile could touch him. None of their sharpened steel sticks would stop him. He would go over and around them, to see Her.
Then they threw him back.
You will not set foot upon this place, he was told by his own. Slaughter the humans outside.
He went back inside, without hesitation.
Then they threw him back. He would not go back inside and leave again, he was told.
He would wait longer to see Her. He would not wait longer to see Her.
He took to the ground. The Arctican tundra did not stop him from breaking through the frozen soil.
He went deeper. He went forward. He went back up.
He knew he would be the first to see Her. He knew he must be the first to see Her.
It was everything he could ever want after waiting. He knew not where he would see Her.
He would feel it, as faint torchlight broke through above.
A light cut short by the weight of a Metal Beast pressed against his burrow. The Metal Beast did not move.
He urged it move. He urged it away. It ignored him.
He cowered.
No, he waited.
The clattering grew erratic. They were no longer protracted rhythms.
They were brief notes. Precise. Sharp.
He paused. What was the sound? What was the cause?
He moved through the earth as these notes grew distant. They left.
He didn't want to follow. He tried. Thrice, a way out blocked by a Metal Beast.
Worthless Metal Beasts. Metal Beasts would see Her before he did. After all the cowering.
Waiting.
He refused to wait. He forced himself through the brick that endured hardship preceding himself.
He saw the colors and shape of something that he refused to see ever again. This is the first he saw it.
Red. That red.
The glint of light that trailed from the length of steel from them.
He blinked countless times within the span of a second. Every open eye saw nothing between where they were, prior and after the second.
He hesitated.
No. That meant he cowered. He waited! That was when he embraced the excuse.
He waited.
But now, he would not wait.
The colors and clatters of the steel they wrapped themselves in. He hated it. The steel was their lie.
He saw it. Underneath all the metal they hide, the flesh of weakness. The flesh of humans. He saw it.
The soft flesh between the detested reds. Low, their left. The length of steel. Low, their right.
That was the last time he waited. He would see Mother.
Mother would see him!
Through the red he hated, he darted forward.
A sharp arm. Like a blade. A true blade.
From behind, from the side that he saw as weak, he found his strength.
There was a sound.
There was a light.
There was...
...
...
...
Agony.
Then there was the cold embrace of the rock and snow, all the way down, as they writhed and screamed.
*squeak*
Stare Roe joined them.
Stare Roe, in turn, was joined - multiple times - by an elongated mass of hooks and blades, several times.
*squeak* *squeak* *squeak* *squeak*
Each and every time, the damnable rubbery effigy bounced and sang that little squeal, virtually unharmed for the effort.
Only when the rest of himself came atop it, did it cease... until it decompressed from the removal of the weight bearing down upon it.
*squeak*
How he loathed Stare Roe.
How he loathed every Guardian.
How he loathed the vast landscape of flaky, soft, stockpiled, freezing ^Water Dust^ of a searing white hue.
How he loathed...
...and loathed...
...and loathed...
...and still yet had more loathing for the cliffs in which he tumbled.
A sheet of fabric of a metallic character flit down into the pile of white, as if it were to show him concern.
He clutched it with the wet length of biomass that could only be considered an arm by generous definition, and wrapped it about himself as he lied low.
Moments later, Stare Roe came back in with him. It was his to destroy.
From under the covers of a flexible sheet of steel, now threadbare strips barely held together from so much damage, he peered out into the expanse.
There was no one. This was hardly a surprise. No one was here.
The humans would not come this way. New Arctica was in a completely different direction.
You were to continue watch here. That was from command.
Command demanded he make himself useful, right where he was for decades.
Far away from Mother. Just as it was then, just as it was now.
Nothing was happening. Nothing was going to happen.
He left the safety of his little sheet cocoon, and applied a more solid arm into the rocky cliff.
His less solid arm struggled to find purchase. With every passing day, it became harder.
He kept trying to stab it in the gaps he made, the gaps that would fill.
The gaps that would sometimes close by the rocks themselves having shifted.
The pain that came whenever the earth pressed down upon his outstretched limbs.
The fury that came whenever frost claimed and fused an arm against the environs.
The frustration that came whenever the lumps of collected ^Water Dust^ fell upon him, and threw him down.
The inconvenience that came when the weather grew so fierce he could not see.
The annoyance that came whenever the effigy of Stare Roe reminded him that he would never destroy it.
The reminder that this was how it would be for the rest of his days.
The short-lived relief that would come as he finally returned back up to the small cavern opening after three straight days of trying.
The relaxation that came as he peered back into that cavern that was his home away from the Photosphere.
The cavern that gave him the perfect view of the worthless part of the tundra he was assigned to.
The cavern too high up for humans to find, too small for the region's natural predators to enter.
He struggled, famished and exhausted, to once again return to the closest thing to warmth and safety.
To Mother.
Mother was in the Photosphere. He could not see her. He could not hear her.
He put Her in this cave instead, by the part of Her he loved most.
Her words.
How she condemned her enemies.
The fulfillment, the pleasure, to have heard those words that so deeply echoed all his beliefs and sentiments!
It was everything he ever wanted to hear from Her.
The only wait he could have willingly suffered, after seventy years of life.
There was no fire nor light in that cavern.
Only her words, scrawled in rough Hyadean script against the stone by his own hand, for him to enjoy at times of rest.
They were his warmth.
He was tired. A terrible thing took him away from warmth and security.
If he closed his eyes, the terrible thing would return. It always did. It never left him.
He no longer wanted to think it. He no longer wanted to sleep with eyes closed.
He wanted to sleep with eyes open, taking in those words always. He wanted to hear Her condemn all of them again.
All the Guardians.
All the humans.
He knew if he could be in Her presence, he could hear Her hate all the things he did.
The Tainted. How he loathed them!
He slapped the steep stone slope with his less solid arm, and shrieked his fury.
He seethed as he thought of the indignity. The Gutter of the Photosphere was closer to Mother than he was!
The wounded, the defective, the infirm... but not him! He wasn't!
He waved that arm against the ice-slick rock, fiery sparks from where flawed, barely-solid metal flesh ground against it.
His body mass churned as it struggled to stay together under the pull of gravity, having not anchored much of himself against the cliff.
The cold was but a small boon in having stopped his lower body from trying to fall off the rest of himself.
That damnable color of false, skin-deep steel that did this to him...
He kept striking at his very hand holds with impotent rage.
They were all dead. He could never kill them. All the glory was taken. None was left for him.
He received no glory for trying to find Mother.
The Guardian Statues... many were sealed. Time and time again, he was foiled from destroying them!
He received no glory for destroying any of the Guardian Statues. Such were claimed by others.
He struck again, and again, and again, like the very rock he had almost surmounted were to stand in for his grievances.
He laid the less solid arm atop it all, after the rock suffered innumerable lacerations. He felt relieved.
Now to return to the cave, he surmised, as he released the more solid arm to reassert his grip.
The rock could no longer support his weight. He cursed as he realized what was to come next, and clutched in vain.
Once more, he tumbled back down into the ^Water Dust^, greeted again by the soft layers of white that had accumulated anew.
The Photosphere did not recall him. It hasn't in some time.
Every time he came back, it was the same.
Stay at your post.
Stay at your empty, boring, tactically worthless post.
Wait there.
Wait for further instruction.
Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
They never waited to throw him right back out.
He waited face-down in the accumulating ^Water Dust^ until its weight was almost too much for him to bear.
He heard no clattering against the tundra.
He saw no colors against the white.
He no longer had the strength to climb the cliff.
He no longer had the means to visit what of Mother he loved most.
What of Mother he was able to take with him.
It was cold. It was dark. It was unseen. It was unheard.
He hated it.
He hated it so much that his starving body, his weak, nearly liquid arm finally struck through the surface of the ^Water Dust^.
The rest of him followed.
There was still nothing.
Nothing but the scorn of Filgaia, what of it the Guardians had left to spare.
The way Fengalon pushed him over with every breeze.
The way Chapapanga saw everything ever go wrong for him.
The way Ge Ramtos gleefully saw him come to the brink of death and never be able to return to health.
The way Solais Emsu now remained forever out of their reach.
The way Celesdue made him look the fool.
The way this bizarre likeness of Stare Roe refused to do anything other than squeal loudly against any force applied to it.
He seethed as he felt them bear down ever more, within his own manias.
He crawled. He struggled. He attempted.
He did not get far before his strength seemed to leave him, as unstable biomass felt ready to liquefy.
With a final anguished shriek, he stabbed the solid arm - transformed into an amalgamation of mismatched, bladed weapons - into the ground.
It was to be an unwitting grave marker...
...for someone else.
^Water Dust^ sprayed from the point of impact, and tired eyes saw what lied underneath.
A still body, clad in colored steel. The steel bore no wounds, no imperfections, beyond its inability to stave off the cold.
He shrieked as he found a ninety-fourth wind, his foul heart having excitedly pumped.
He crawled as far a distance as he could muster, and turned his more solid arm as thin and narrow as manageable.
Once, twice, thrice...
He poked at it at irregular intervals, as though having expected it to stir. Having expected it to rise.
All it did was, from the constant jostling, turn the empty gaze of the dead their way.
Once more, he hid under the threadbare metallic fabric cocoon, and waited.
Waited. No. He hated waiting. He was cowering.
He was too tired, to frightened, to argue against that.
It took hours before he opened up the cocoon.
The corpse remained in wait.
It was only then the realization had come.
That was a human.
He did not think of how long they were there. He did not think of what it was first doing there.
He only cared that it was a human, located here.
He had reason to return to the Photosphere.
The humans were attacking from a different direction! He thought.
A different direction than from New Arctica!
He would bring the human there. That would be his proof.
They would let him inside, he devised. This was an advance scout for the human hordes!
He fancied. He conjectured. He lied.
He stabbed the solid arm into where it first found purchase. He thought not about its preservation.
He started to drag it against the mounting ^Water Dust^. It seemed to grow more packed, more wet.
It grew harder to pull. There were many miles to go between here and the Photosphere.
His reserves were expended.
His body was freezing.
His environs were hostile.
Only one thing mattered. Only one thing empowered.
Mother awaited.
Mother did not cower.
He would not wait.
As everything worked against him, he pulled the human corpse along.
He grew to hate so much more, with every passing moment.
He could not wait to hear Her own hatred again.
Even as he waited - no, cowered - against any slightest hints of hostile movement along the way...
...even against seeing the very light of the Photosphere's own mighty barrier...
...even as he accumulated more shame, more injury, more weakness...
...he drew upon all he knew these last seventy years.
The only reason he was ever given, the only reason he ever needed.
He no longer needed to cower.
He no longer needed to wait.
He no longer needed to wonder what would come next.
As he shouted meekly into the air his fantastical lie, his overblown falsehood, his lacking observation...
He was granted audience.
Stay at your post.
Wait there.
Wait for further instruction.
So said through the Metal Beast that retrieved him.
A Metal Beast who merely had a speaker attached.
Wait. Wait. Wait.
The Guardians, as they were, were already helpless under Her immense presence.
They were powerless to do naught but see a seething thing.
That was all he could do, was seethe.
He no longer waited.
He no longer cowered.
He only seethed.
It was enough sustenance unto itself to see them into another day.
*squeak*
Stare Roe kept him unwelcome company as he squeezed it tight against himself with all the hatred he could muster.
Together, underneath the protective sheet of metallic fabric that scarce gave any shelter.
A shelter soon to be buried underneath the endless white around them.
Then he closed his eyes once more.