A fool's grievance

Cielo Burdened even as you were in your thoughtless rest, lost in anoesis, the sensation of wrong did not leave. Or rather it returned all too soon, for no matter how stupid you thought of yourself as being your instincts are far from dull. It creeps in, an echo of a choke. It is a terrible sound and your body twitches at the suddenness and the feeling of offense. Your slumber is broken with a jolt as you realized that you are found yet again, betrayed by the Presence for it sought you as you prayed it not too. Silly boy, betray? You feel betrayed? The presence is not a thing to have honor, or mercy, or regret. It only does what it does and what it does is prey on you. I would too honestly. You keep calling it, you bring this on yourself with your pitiful crying no doubt. Hmm, wonder what's in store this time...what do you think is coming? You strain, your ears perked and breath held for that terrible unnerving sound, you're practically vibrating with tension and apprehension thinking of the lightning that had seared you before ( which I think is practically powering that coltish body of yours looking at you right now). But no lightning comes, no crackle or metallic singe in the air just a gurgle, blop. Loving water so much you cannot possiably mistake the sound of running water, I mean it is Drench after all, and of all the seasons you choose a tunnel to hide in...an underwater tunnel. Oh, how's the picture looking now, you idiot. Your feet are not fast enough but I commend the effort, truly, but you simply didn't have the energy for it so sore form your earlier flight despite the nap. It was a fair distance you got before the brown goo got you, first teasing along your back feet, snagging them up and making you stumble and flail to get them back in a cruel makeshift game of cat-and-mouse before finally overwhelming you totally in one fell swoop. The water is strangely thick and it imprisons you, turning you in slow-motion like a display in zero gravity while you struggle to breath, which do you know that you actually are? In the brown water? No, you don't because your panicking - again- but I'll concede your reasons this time because ow, this actually really hurts. In the cold water you are burning, the skin of your body seething from your front legs up into an alien form through the machinations of invisable arms remaking you. The hairs of your coat become scales, your hooves fins, but worst of all is the jutting of your jaw into a horrendous underbite as you swell impossibly into yourself. At least there is a light at the end of the tunnel now - oh, wait that's just a baitlure on your forehead. Goodness,you truly are abysmal and I mean that in a fish way, in an anglerfish way. I guess that's another gift from the Rift. I might have been a bit wrong that light before - sort of. The tide is rushing forward at an alarming pace even as you idly spin within its grasp and finishes in record time the crossing of the cave that you couldn't complete. Suddenly the swell bursts out of the threshold like a water gun with a tremendous roar. The coast of the little island of Ultima is swallowed under a carnivorous flood and you, my poor boy, are deposited like a piece of jetsam on the stained golden sand, the strange tide receding as quick as it had come. There, stranded and alone like the waif you are should anyone see you they'd be in for a confusing sight. The sticky water clings to you in murky tendrils and parasitic globs that slowly leech themselves off of your normally pale form. Soaked your flesh is see through, transparent enough to see clearly the outlines of your bones and even the shadowy outline of your beating heart. Your front half remains as a gasping Anglerfish, the rest a ghostly vision of your equine form, the terrible mouth opening and closing of its open accord but mercy be it seems you are returning to your old self bit by bit, the transformation process reversing from fins into legs, the short face elongating into a ewe neck and at last your familiar face as the ugly brown scales bleach to white and blue where appropriate but in a transparent state. You would have been delighted no doubt but Cielo, my dear, you are utterly spent and aware of nothing. You are just breathing as instinct demands, limp as a bonefish. I'm afraid if the Rift came to play with you again it'd be game, set, and match. I won't say anything if you won't. Play dead for the time being, for both our sakes. I'm sure you can do that, right... Right? Good. "Talk." All is as mist Pangur Ban

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