All of the dried fruits had been devoured between the two, who had spent the better part of an hour sitting in silence, watching the village below.
Elder Ulias finally stood. Dusting sugar from his fingertips. "Well young lady, It's time that I head back down the mountain. I think I've successfully missed my next meeting. How angry do you think Minora will be?" The old man chuckled, the chime of his rattling earrings flavored the sound. It was a large gold pair he had worn since before Korin could remember.
She shrugged, maintaining eye contact long enough to see that a few more lines around his eyes had appeared over the years. She had noticed so easily the wear on the mountain, yet the slow progression of time had escaped her notice when it came to the people around her. Especially the elders, who have been pruned and wrinkly since she was born. "Thank you, grandfather."
"Ah," His eyes widened for a moment then relaxed, bent into pleased crescent moons. "It is so nice to see you feeling so sentimental."
Korin simply nodded. She had indeed felt a sort of sentiment in her observations for the last few weeks.
Ulias gently placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "Thank you child. This view is beautiful and I feel I needed that time to appreciate my home with you."
Korin looked out from their perch. A place she sat often, a view seared into her memories. It was beautiful. Tall jagged mountains, majestic and daunting, spread further than the eye could see. The village sat in the heart of the forest, filled with towering trees and grassy knolls and meadows. The winding Istar river peeking through the trees here and there. Beyond the forest the mountains became more rocky and sparse, then went from gray to red. Eventually they would degrade and flatten, turning into the sand that filled the Seene Desert then beyond into the wastelands. A massive expanse of nothing that had protected Ipahn from countless invasions. The only viable way to enter the country was from the ocean.
"It was quite enjoyable." Korin agreed, still seated. "I hope you don't mind me not accompanying you down, but I think I would like to sit a little longer."
"Very well. Have a good night, Korin." He gave the girl one last look. She had grown well over the last twenty-seven years. He remembered vividly when Samhir and Elma had brought her to the village square as an infant. It was customary in Ipahn to parade babies around once they had adjusted and built immunity. Births were not common in smaller rural villages and every one had wanted to catch a glimpse of their newest member. She had been babbely for a baby so young, with a patch of dark hair, and large eyes that eagerly studied every face and object that came close enough to see. She was still much the same; large eyed and observant, a little older and perhaps a bit more quiet, but still the same. Ulias smiled and then he was off to face Minora and her nit picking. Making his way down the path until he was out of sight.
The elder seemed to take the breeze with him, because as soon as he was gone, the air on the mountain stilled.
The world once more became quiet for Korin. With the breeze gone, the sun shone down on her with a subtle warmth. She closed her eyes and tossed her head back. Shaking out her hair, still slightly damp from the ritual.
So high up, away from the eyes of the villagers, was one of the few places Korin felt she could relax. She didn't feel as if she had to remain out of sight, taking side trails and hiding in shadows.
A sigh escaped her lips as she basked in the sunlight, belly stuffed on fruits, and content. She let the thoughts she had of the week flitter away. It was strange how pleasant experiences could still somehow be so draining. Perhaps it was just her and she was simply new to so much socializing. So she let it go for now, focusing on the rays that illuminated her skin and the skyline beyond the mountains.
This was perhaps the most peaceful the mountain had ever felt. She lifted her gaze to the sky, a single lone cloud floating in its blue expanse. Long ago the ancient Ipahnish had believed that the mountains held up the sky and that if one day the mountains ever fell into the sea, the sky would fall and crush the world. In the silence and the sunlight Korin wondered if the sky fell would that one cloud still float.
In the silence….
The silence.
She didn't realize she had shut her eyes, and the orange glow made way for the brightness of daylight as the popped open she quickly looked around.
It was eerily quiet. Not a single howl of wind, rustle of a leaf, or chirp of a bird. She looked down at the village. She couldn't hear the distant sounds of the people. Korin shook her head, rubbing a finger into her ear, hearing the internal roar of skin rubbing skin, and looked around quizzically.
"You're not going deaf, if that is what you're concerned about."
Korin leapt up, turning to the faintly familiar voice from a little down the path. Where Ulias had disappeared now stood a man. He was tall, dressed in black trousers and a tunic with neat buttons that hung to his knees. His head was shaved clean and it gave the individual a daunting sort of appearance. She had seen him once before, in Miss Siras tavern. He had been the individual Sven was gossiping to.
"It is a ward that traps waves of all forms. Sound being one of them." He explained and Korin took note of how his tone fell flat. Its sound did not carry. "No one will be able to sense a thing inside its barrier. It's not quite as flawless as your friends," he shrugged, "but, I'm a mimic not a master."
Something inside of her dropped, a thousand miles in, distant and vague, it plummeted down and she felt its whisper nipping at her stomach. Korin had seen plenty of individuals use magic. Experienced Idoni's healing powers and the ritual energies of the elders, seen traveling elementalists and espers. This magic however was different. It carried a thick edge held sharp at the fibers of her being. This was the first time magic was ever being used against her.
Korin took a slow step back and another as the individual strolled forward at a casual pace, taking in the views and enjoying his time.
"Can I help you?" She chose the words in hernest, confused, looking to bow over and submit. But the question came out cold, her monotone syllables slapping off the stone around them. She couldn't escape the muted falling feeling and it rode up her throat in the winds of her voice.
The man shook his head, advancing still, a small sad smile on his face. "Unfortunately not." He came to a halt a good few meters from her. Blue eyes that reflected the sky in perfect likeness, were crested downwards, molded in a soft anguish. "I know it may not mean much but I wish to apologize in advance. Doing these things was never my intention. I just want to survive."
His odd confession fell upon her with sadness and unease. "What are you talking about?"
"...I don't expect your forgiveness, though."
"What-" She went to repeat herself but was cut short when the man's arm snapped up. She let out a startled puff of air before it violently shot forward. Growing unnaturally long and bending in odd angles at it flashed towards her. Bones cracked, skin stretched and her stomach rolled as the hand reached her, snatching hold of her shirt, long claws scratching at her chest. She let out another ragged breath as she was pulled from her feet, whipped up, head snapping back and forth, before being slammed onto her back.
"ACK!" Pain shot up her spine and her adrenaline spiked, moving through her veins like wild horses on a stampede.
She struggled backward on instinct, found a little leverage as her hand found his grotesque morphed one and she tried to pry off his grip. In her struggle she felt his fingers curling and growing. They snaked around her torso, wrapped up her forearms and latched onto her fingers, locking her in place.
She let out heavy streams of ragged breaths now. Pupils dilated and heart racing. A rustling from the side and a sharp single clap had her head snapping backward, skull digging into dirt and stone, eyes rolling back to find three more men had appeared behind her. Unlike the man and his bizarre arm, these men were dressed in all white, from head to toe. Each had a similar shared appearance of cropped hair, stony gazes, and knotted canes. The leader, an individual with a stout build and a small mustache clapped his hand methodically, his cane pinched in his armpit.
"That a' boy, mimic." His voice, with the drawling accent of the central provinces, stabbed at Korins ears unnaturally in the sound absorbing bubble. Despite the praise it carried the flat tone of insincerity. "Keep her pinned."
Her eyes flashed back to the man and then again to the trio. One pulled a small box from a chest pocket, procuring forth a metal syringe. Long, thin with a looping plunger, a thin needle crowning the tip.
In a glass vial slotted in the syringe, Korin could see a pale liquid.
Escape.
She flinched as the foreign voice entered her inner dialogue. Horrid and hollow, it rasped, and with it came a siren. A high pitched whine she heard not in her ears but felt in the pit of her stomach. Blood strummed through her heart and rushed into her head while her face reddened at the uncomfortable sensation of the eerie whine.
There was an overwhelming need to take action, survival instincts she never knew she had alighting, arcing in zinging snaps of electricity.
Run. Go.
Her arms were dragging his grip forward, flexing, fingers breaking free, nails digging into the flesh of the man's stretching limbs. Then her arms were free and she was clawing his grip away with fingers grown a little too sharp. But that went past her notice. The whine was singing in her blood, demanding action, and she burst forward, shot from the ground and sprinted to the left, clearing the bench, streaking across the stone overlook and into the forest line.
"After her, mimic!"
A commotion of rustling came from behind her in heavy pursuit. Her feet pounded forward propelling her quickly through trees she knew. Korin could count all the time she had run in her memory on a single hand. It was not necessarily an attribute of hers, so she found a small moment to marvel at the dexterity she displayed in her adrenal fueled state. She moved so swiftly and, for a second, whispers of deja vu tickled her heart.
Then the pounding of her pursuer was closer and she dared a glance behind her.
The man was no longer a man. Perhaps a semblance of him remained, held in place by his attire; waving from him like scraps of cloth stuck on sticks and branches. He ran on all fours, limbs splaying out around him in a windmill like fashion. One arm flopped about out of sync, ribbons of flesh streaming behind it. His torso was elongated, his tunic just barely concealing emaciated ribs and a jagged spine with too many vertebrae. A screech tunneled from a blackened hole in a thick worm like head, blue eyes melted into drooping folds of skin.
A yelp, oddly deep, escaped her as fire burned in her legs, mentally pushing herself faster. The whine encompassed her now, shaking her vision and rocking the world.
One moment she was flying forward and the next she was hitting the barrier.
It wasn't like hitting a wall, as there wasn't any individual points of impact. But a force that hit every little piece of her front. She flew back, head spinning, hands and elbows digging into soil and rock. Her vision swam as the creature came to tower over her, his good arm wrapping around her again.
It smashed her into the barrier.
Once, and Korin was choking as all the air rushed from her lungs.
Twice, and a hollow grunt squeezed from her throat and her vision swam with stars.
Thrice, and she went limp in his grip.
A fourth time, for the mimic's satisfaction, irritated by pain and acting on the traumas of his circumstances. Would they kill him if he killed her? Smashed her to pulp in a fit. Better for her that way than the prison.
"Enough!," came the thundering order of the priest, a way off but in sight- close enough to see the contemplation in the mimic's eyes- approaching steadily. "Best to remember your place. You've come so far. You wouldn't want to be sent back to the lower levels would you?"