04-25-2015, 12:03 PM
The beginning of time seemed like a shady answer, but then again, Tarin as a whole was a rather shady character. Jaxen shrugged. He had been hoping to hear an explanation in terms of dates: centuries, millennia, whatever. Especially since Tarin deemed he was worthy to survive his age. Kudos to Jaxen, then. With a few decades under his belt, he should be an expert at living by now.
He passed through the invisible threshold, and a million hands grabbed his skin, stretching him apart, yanking every single hair until he was one flat Jaxen carpet. He tried to yell, but ash filled the space one might assume was his mouth. The threshold rushed around him like a fighter-jet punching through the sky, but faster. When he emerged on the other side, he was hole, but his skin itched like it was sewn back together too fast. He shivered at the sensation and held his stomach while his sense of balance returned.
The room wobbled back into focus as Jaxen realized just which room that was. A veritible crowd of snakes stood before him like he was the spectacle on stage. He instinctively backed up, but the doorway passed overhead without the familiar transport to another dimension, like he'd hoped. Well, it was worth a shot. "Guess you can only go there once,"
he said. His nerves were kept well below the surface, but this time Jaxen had an ace in his pocket. The light was dim and distant, but there. Yet when he reached for it, barely a trickle of what he wielded with Tarin came through. He drew upon the light, but it was like drinking through a clogged straw. Something was keeping him from using its full potential. With this miniscule amount, he might be able to stop one snake, but do nothing but make the dozens others laugh at him.
"Now what?"
He asked, making himself focus purely upon Sora. She was the most human of the ones in sight, but that was a poor comparison. Her scales seemed to slither even as she stood still. What ones could be seen behind the veils of black draping her form in disguise.
"Now you rrrreturn to your rrrrealm,"
she uttered with that wispy sound of snake-language.
She came for him, and Jaxen found himself braced against the slab that was the back wall. He licked his lips when she laid those cold-blooded fingers across his arm. A rising chant filled his ears, coming from the stretched jaws of the watching naga, but their language was unknown to him. He felt like the sacrifice in some sick ritual and powerless to change his fate. He depended on Sora to get him home.
She threw her cloak high and all went dark. All this trans-dimensional time travel was growing old.
He passed through the invisible threshold, and a million hands grabbed his skin, stretching him apart, yanking every single hair until he was one flat Jaxen carpet. He tried to yell, but ash filled the space one might assume was his mouth. The threshold rushed around him like a fighter-jet punching through the sky, but faster. When he emerged on the other side, he was hole, but his skin itched like it was sewn back together too fast. He shivered at the sensation and held his stomach while his sense of balance returned.
The room wobbled back into focus as Jaxen realized just which room that was. A veritible crowd of snakes stood before him like he was the spectacle on stage. He instinctively backed up, but the doorway passed overhead without the familiar transport to another dimension, like he'd hoped. Well, it was worth a shot. "Guess you can only go there once,"
he said. His nerves were kept well below the surface, but this time Jaxen had an ace in his pocket. The light was dim and distant, but there. Yet when he reached for it, barely a trickle of what he wielded with Tarin came through. He drew upon the light, but it was like drinking through a clogged straw. Something was keeping him from using its full potential. With this miniscule amount, he might be able to stop one snake, but do nothing but make the dozens others laugh at him.
"Now what?"
He asked, making himself focus purely upon Sora. She was the most human of the ones in sight, but that was a poor comparison. Her scales seemed to slither even as she stood still. What ones could be seen behind the veils of black draping her form in disguise.
"Now you rrrreturn to your rrrrealm,"
she uttered with that wispy sound of snake-language.
She came for him, and Jaxen found himself braced against the slab that was the back wall. He licked his lips when she laid those cold-blooded fingers across his arm. A rising chant filled his ears, coming from the stretched jaws of the watching naga, but their language was unknown to him. He felt like the sacrifice in some sick ritual and powerless to change his fate. He depended on Sora to get him home.
She threw her cloak high and all went dark. All this trans-dimensional time travel was growing old.