[PRP] missing more than that

[oneironym]

Lucretia awoke to a grey and rainy day, and promptly discovered that Bhel was missing. Kumoru had charged her with guarding the Fa'e boy ever since the house had been attacked in the night by Chaos - something that the girl did not completely understand, since the attack had been made on Kumoru himself, rather than her little brother. Still, she could not contend her father's wishes, and so had been accompanying Bhel everywhere he went. Somehow, today, he had either slipped off on his own, or something had taken him away.

The latter thought made her sick - not living up to her assigned purpose was a constant, if quiet, worry for the girl. But if Bhel had just snuck out without her, well ... she had best find him either way. If he was off alone and in danger, it would be her duty to protect him.

She just sort of was not fully sure where to start looking. Bhel was not in the house, but there were a lot of places left that were Not in the House.

Crossing her arms, the girl thought on where else he might go. Somewhere that he might want to go alone without her following. Or some place that the evil darkness or some other malevolent force may want to drag him off. ... Lucretia really had no idea where evil things might take the bull child, so hopefully she would just get lucky and run into him somehow before it was too late. In the meanwhile, the only place she could think of that he might want to go on his own was the Fa'e Headquarters. And so, without bothering to put on a sheet to hide her lack of a lower body, Lucretia hurried outside into the chilly drizzle.

The weather did not bother her, particularly: the cold was nice, and the raindrops felt rather refreshing, as well. It was a bit of a float through the forest from the Asahi household to the Headquarters, but Lucretia hurried and made the trip quicker than she was used to it taking when she had Bhel with her. Kumoru had warned her when he told her to protect Bhel that the place was not safe, however she had not been there herself since the Chaos had taken over.

-- So imagine the girl's surprise when she found the ordinarily-welcoming building covered over in black ooze and surrounded by twisted creatures that may have been birds once....

"Bhel?!" Lucretia called out, spreading her wings out and clenching her fingers into fists as she circled the building at what seemed a safe distance.  

[Arrien]

The Chaos birds had been busy, recently.

Ever since Halloween, the area around the HQ had been littered with the decaying corpses of hundreds of turnips. Once decorated with faces of all degrees happiness and spookiness, the things had begun to put up a stink after a few weeks. Without a building to care for, the fairies that ordinarily kept the place so neat couldn't be bothered to clean up the mess - and so they'd let the turnips go to waste. As winter grew colder, the vegetables had been exposed to all kinds of weather, rain, then sleet, then snow; bit by bit, they'd rotted out.

And it was this moldy, slimy state that the Chaos creatures apparently couldn't resist. They'd descended from their aerial observance to gorge themselves on chunks of the stuff, gobbling it down greedily, pecking at each other over the choicest bits.

One might think, given their current distraction, they would take little notice of an unimportant girl - not even a Fa'e! - who came wandering into their midst. One might think that, since the Chaos creatures had not attacked anyone prior to this, they would have no reason to bother with this one girl. However, one may be forgetting the nature of Chaos as they tried to predict their behavior; and therefore, one was likely to be shocked by the results.

As Lucretia neared the building, hundreds of pairs of dull black eyes suddenly locked on her. Some territorial switch had just been toggled - or perhaps it was just a mean streak, or maybe it was something in the rotten vegetables that had messed with their brain. Maybe they just thought that Lucretia looked especially fine and turnip-like that day, who knew? But there was a sudden rush of silence as all bickering ceased between them. No sound but a few flutters of feathers and a slight, worried gasp from the watching fairies (who were, of course, hiding in their tree.)

Then the crows rose as one, and descended upon her.  

[oneironym]

No roses could cover up the scent of the rotting vegetable matter, and Lucretia put a hand to her face as the stench reached her. Things looked so wrong here; if Bhel was around somewhere, it was entirely possible that she would not be able to help him. The girl chilled the air around her with her worry--

-- and as she felt the eyes turn towards her, Lucretia's temperature dropped further. The moisture in the air around her began to condense into a light fog, and she ventured to move her hand from in front of her face to clench it in a fist in preparation to defend herself. When the twisted birds came at her as one, though, she started swinging her bitterly-cold fists, but there were too many on her at once.

Lucretia let out an unearthly and owl-like shriek of fear and anger as she tried to pull the crows off of herself, and the ribbon that trailed from her incomplete body grew wider to try to defend the glowing magical rune that was only partially inside her. She became aware that the crows were after her rune, as well - her Fel Essence. If that was taken from her ... well, actually Lucretia was not fully sure what would happen, but it could not possibly be good. The grasping talons and sharp beaks hurt enought where ever they cut her flesh.  

[Arrien]

The formula was so simple here. Chaos creatures though they might be, they were still ravens. They saw shiny; they pecked at shiny. They wanted to snatch it for themselves, just like any other raven would have desired.

Their being Chaos creatures did change one thing, however. And that was that, when Lucretia tried to defend it, she succeeded only in rousing their anger.

They shrieked and squawked, ripping at the unfortunate girl with their claws, jabbing viciously with their beaks. Her assailants flew at her like a vortex from the sky, scuffling with her in turn. One of them wrapped a deformed beak around that precious rune, began to pull....

Lucretia's choices were very, very few now. On one side, there was the collective danger of the ravens, poking at her and making shreds out of her flesh. On the other, there was the building. The twisting, imposing place that had once been the Fa'e headquarters, now darkened and dangerous. As likely a grave as an escape, by its looks, but lacking any other shelter, it was at least a possibility of survival.

One thing seemed certain enough, anyway; there was no one in sight to save her. Lucretia would have to decide herself whether it were the crows or the building that she would face now.  

[oneironym]

Lucretia never felt cold. She was cold herself, so, logically, only things that were colder than she was could make her feel that sensation. However, what she felt right now was a chill far deeper than any she could possibly create herself. She shrieked at the crows as they attacked her, the air around her growing colder and colder with first her anger, then her desperation. Razor-sharp talons cut through her pale skin, causing blue blood to streak the flesh of her forearms alongside the ribbons that wrapped them.

Bhel was not here, and if he was, he was long dead. Lucretia would not have been able to save him, because she was realizing she could not save herself. The bitter chill of fear, and of failing to be useful to her father, tightened its grasp on her heart.

The black coating the Fa'e Headquarters lingered at the edge of her vision. She could not get back out into the open, and even if she could, it would not keep the tearing crows away. There was still this building, though. Somewhere inside, in theory, at least, it was still a shelter, and she had been here several times before, so she knew from the front walk where the door should be.

With a cry of pain and newfound determination, Lucretia swung one arm to try to bat away several of the attacking birds at once, and lunged at the same time for the spot on the darkened wall where the doorknob should be.  

[Arrien]

Her hand touched the wall. And that was the end.

It might not have been so bad, really. Truly, all that would have ordinarily happened was that Lucretia would have been pulled into the Absence - which, while dangerous all in its own, was not, by necessity, fatal.

But it was that crow. That one ******** Chaos creature, with its claws wrapped around Lucretia's Fel Essence. It was not pulled into the Absence - and neither was the prize that it was so determined to pull from the girl's body. And when she was sucked in, the resistance that had kept the crow from making away with the shiny bit snapped - it went tumbling off into the air. A chorus of triumphant crow-laughter struck up, and they all began spatting with one another over possession of their new trophy.

As for the rest of the Raevan girl, well... the Absence was a very big, and very strange place. Even God could only guess what would happen to her now.  

[oneironym]

She knew she had made a mistake as soon as the profound chill of nothing traveled up her fingers and her arm into her mind. Lucretia shuddered and tried to pull away, but the crows were still there, still clawing at her. And the blackness of the wall would not let her go; in fact, it pulled her ever closer.

Shrieking owl-cries to the air, she fought as the Absence sucked her in, and continued to flail at the crows with her free hand. And then her Essence came free with a shattering suddenness. Lucretia's mind stopped then as the rune that had driven her fell to the ground, and, without further resistance, the Absence pulled her in. The ribbons that circled her wrists, however, sprang to life, and snaked out to find each other in the darkness. There, they knotted together firmly, a dozen, a hundred times, preserving Lucretia's spirit within them.

Kumoru's will upon her soul - safety.