As I have sympathy for it, I will not let it suffer. Its seed healed and preserved me, human, so I owe it a debt. Its ancestors will remember yours.
(though brief, as voices rise in disagreement and the tree sends them visions of fire, he is sent back to the war. waiting for a decision to be made on his behalf damned him once. his fate lies in his own hands now, and he won't wait again.
ocelot's hand returns to encourage him, but voryn, walking out from beneath it toward the base of the tree, has already committed himself to the pain. his short march leads him to a bare and exploited part of the tree of life's root system whose hairs and filaments have been stripped away to reveal an interior coated in suberin. the great thing's waxy flesh hides its vascular bundle from his unhesitant touch. while it doesn't feel as strange against his fingers as the seeds' sap they as newborns are coated with, its alien consciousness shoves into the recesses of his mind like a violation, suffocating him with miasma.)
I believe I will survive this... but I cannot be sure. If I should die, I can only ask you to burn my body and honour what remains... (it is intended for ocelot as silco's respect for the old and dying may be the same for the old and dead. this, above all things, he cannot risk.
it's difficult to speak. still, he must.)
Great Tree... I am Lord Voryn Dagoth of the Sixth House, General to the First Council of Resdayn... I will take your pain into me until you may die free of despair. (the men are given one, ready nod. when his voice raises again, it is for words in the commanding language of the chimer:) Druha en almeshi am hagil muhr!
(as the last syllable is spoken, the miasma shifts in the gloaming of the root depths, no longer spreading but concentrating its flow. in the centre of his forehead, the eyelike ruby shard pulses. possessed by the agony in his skull and unresponsive lungs, his whole body seizes, sending him to his knees.)
no subject
(though brief, as voices rise in disagreement and the tree sends them visions of fire, he is sent back to the war. waiting for a decision to be made on his behalf damned him once. his fate lies in his own hands now, and he won't wait again.
ocelot's hand returns to encourage him, but voryn, walking out from beneath it toward the base of the tree, has already committed himself to the pain. his short march leads him to a bare and exploited part of the tree of life's root system whose hairs and filaments have been stripped away to reveal an interior coated in suberin. the great thing's waxy flesh hides its vascular bundle from his unhesitant touch. while it doesn't feel as strange against his fingers as the seeds' sap they as newborns are coated with, its alien consciousness shoves into the recesses of his mind like a violation, suffocating him with miasma.)
I believe I will survive this... but I cannot be sure. If I should die, I can only ask you to burn my body and honour what remains... (it is intended for ocelot as silco's respect for the old and dying may be the same for the old and dead. this, above all things, he cannot risk.
it's difficult to speak. still, he must.)
Great Tree... I am Lord Voryn Dagoth of the Sixth House, General to the First Council of Resdayn... I will take your pain into me until you may die free of despair. (the men are given one, ready nod. when his voice raises again, it is for words in the commanding language of the chimer:) Druha en almeshi am hagil muhr!
(as the last syllable is spoken, the miasma shifts in the gloaming of the root depths, no longer spreading but concentrating its flow. in the centre of his forehead, the eyelike ruby shard pulses. possessed by the agony in his skull and unresponsive lungs, his whole body seizes, sending him to his knees.)