Fixing Azarashi, Step One [9/18] Mutation Dev

[19:31] Azarashi says, "Splendid."
[19:32] Azarashi says, "I've always wondered about this building."
[19:34] The Accursed leads the young, naïve dryad to her demesne, somewhere deep in the Dreadwoods. He doesn't need to have perfectly working eyes to feel the cloying occultism of the forest itself, pressing down on him. Ardith, of course, feels no discomfort. Quite the opposite. This is home for her.

She leads him into the well appointed mansion and further into a laboratory off of the western wing. It's stocked with all manner of supplies; alchemical, medical, and technological apparatuses line the walls and desks.

"Hop up and lie down on the table for me, why ain't ya?"
(Ardith Hirai)
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[19:39] Over the years he's developed something that of an immunity, or it'd be more apt to say a resistance. Because no matter how many times he's passed through the dreadwoods, it's always a bit of a gamble. Anxious or neutral feelings, they come and go.

Dull eyes scanned the interior and he could just barely make out some widgets, and if it wasn't visibly apparent, the sterile stench gave Azarashi an idea of where he was.

This towering build he always passes by, at least now some of its mysteries were known now.

The naturekin does as the Accursed says and lies down upon the table. His staff is leaned against the counter in arm's length.

"At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I am quite excited. I'm ready for my new body, Ardith. I must thank you again for now I'll be able to see my wonderful lover with my eyes."
(Azarashi)
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[19:43] The grisly smile she gives him is expected by now, completely at home on her face just as she is in the Dreadwoods. She wouldn't look herself without it, or some equally macabre expression.

"It ain't gonna happen all at once, y'know. These things take time. If I were to force too much change at a time? Ya wouldn't be yourself. Or ya might not even live. Maybe go crazy? Really depends."

There were a lot of factors to consider in these things. She begins lining up her brushes and several varied bottles of inks of different colors on the long table.

"We'll start with your eyes though...S'important ya can see. Defend yourself. Appreciate what's goin' on around ya. That sorta thing. Ya got a lover, huh? Tell me 'bout her while I get ready..."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[19:47] He found it a bit awkward to be speaking to the Accursed from such a position. He sat up and crossed his legs but stared blankly ahead when he talked;

"That Sho lass, you've seen her before. I've never been so drawn to someone before. She's rough and vulgar, but tender when it counts. Surprisingly bashful and she's always been so soft to me. She's strong, reliable, and vicious when she needs to be. And I think that's why I feel like I want to take care of her. For a long time."

Whatever miscellaneous noise Ardith makes, the dryad turns to it. Olive eyes follow around a blurred horned beast, trying to visually parse whatever she's doing.

"And I believe with that, starting with my eyes is a wonderful beginning. I did make a promise with her that I would behold her with my full vision."
(Azarashi)
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[19:50] As Azarashi tries to sit up, her clawed hand comes up and presses him back down against the table. She keeps him held there. Firmly. The other hand is holding a brush not even yet dipped in ink.

"Keep lyin' down. And hold still," she commands.

"Yeah. I seen her. Ain't really met her but I seen her. Prolly good, ya got someone a lil' less squishy to look after ya.

"But ain't forget our deal. Yeah? So long as she ain't get in the way of that? I'm happy for ya."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[19:53] Ooph-Azarashi is frail but there was something so powerful about Ardith. He nearly jolts himself off the table if not for her hand. Once again that sickly miasma of hers begins to take ahold.

"P,Pray forgive me. I'll keep still." he murmurs. Then he's silent for a good moment, to collect his thoughts. "Of course. The deal. I'm sure she'll be just as happy to see my body anew. I assure you there's nothing more than I would want right now."

What's she going to do with that brush? He closes his eyes to be sure.
(Azarashi)
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[19:58] "As ya might recall, that wasn't the only part of the deal.

"Ya follow my lead. While I fix folks and make 'em better. Remember?"

Humans. Humans of all kinds and their dreadfully short memories. They must be poked and propped to recall their deals. She'll have to fix that too.

Ardith takes not her brush, but a stick of charcoal. As the dryad holds still she starts using it to draw the outlines, sketches of runes on his temples and near his eyes.

"So long as ya remember that. We ain't got aaaany trouble..."
(Ardith Hirai)
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[20:02] The dryad blinks a few times, as if trying to salvage that important bit of dialogue from the recesses of his mind.

"R-Right! Pray, forgive me, Ardith. I did not mean to be dishonest. Truly, a lapse in memory. Of course. You're doing so much for me so naturally I should return the favor. Naturally, I should want everyone else to be 'fixed'."

Still, "Fix" being the operative word, and he's not been told what exactly this meant.

Either way, he'd follow blindly like a lamb to slaughter. And even then, would he despise Ardith for it? Would there be any room for regret afterwards?

Azarashi trembles as he's drawn on, though he tries not to move so much.

"This isn't...Going to hurt, is it?"
(Azarashi)
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[20:14] The Accursed shushes him, gently somehow, as she pats his head for a moment.

"'Course, 'course...I can forgive folks. Ain't ya worry," she says almost dotingly as runs those grisly claws through his hair and between his antlers.

Her intentions aren't to slaughter. Even if they are good, they make great flagstones for a terrible road she's walking.

"Oh, lil' buck...poor lil' buck. All good things come with a price. Sometimes we gotta' hurt to remake ourselves. It's all part of how it goes, y'see. But don't worry. Like I told ya, it's gonna make ya better."

Ardith's words are soft, a murmur, as she continues to draw the outlines of the runes to be laid down on his skin.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[20:19] One hard swallow.

Being treated so tenderly by a creature with horns and hooves is a surreal experience. Especially one with gnashing teeth and special capabilities. But it wasn't unwelcomed. Even the older sibling needs counsel.

Those initial worries melt away and his mind focuses on a single point: getting better.

Another hard swallow.

No price without pain. "Then I'll simply endure it," He says with trembling breath. This distracts the mind. Like a projector, it switches to a scene when Sumiye was at the lighthouse. Anxiety spikes. Breaths quicken. So he holds onto Ardith's words like a lifeline.

"Make me better. Of course."

Then do whatever you want.
(Azarashi)
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[20:26] "Good, good," she croons, running a hand down the dryad's cheek. She places all of her focus on laying down the groundwork for the symbols.

"Right now, nothin' should hurt. Not until I activate 'em, and I ain't even drawn the final symbols yet. So just relax...take it easy. Hold still."

A wrong twitch could make all her hard work fall apart and his mutations go horribly, terribly awry. While she works she hums an eerie, soft song for the troubled dryad. A lilting tune to ease his woes.

And draw him further into the procedure. All to plan.

Once the symbols are drawn first in charcoal she picks up her brush and dips it into one of the wells of ink nearby. She goes back over the lines with the horsehair bristles, careful and diligent.

She sings him a song, a gentle, murmured tune, almost a lullaby. Something about horses in distant, green pastures gamboling wild and free. A favorite from her time back home. Maybe it will put him at ease? Maybe not. Ardith only cares so much.

"When I put energy in these now...it's gonna hurt. Are ya gonna be ready for that?"
(Ardith Hirai)
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[20:32] In between Ardith's melody and her ghastly aura, the dryad feels an indescribable mixture of emotions. But if he had to latch onto one word, it would be "nostalgic".

Azarashi is absolutely still. Even when the brush tickles him, he grins and bares it. He even somehow wills sweat to stay in their pores. At this moment, he might as well be a corpse for Ardith's wretched revival.

Imagines from the Accursed's song begins to play like a faded movie projector. Choppy in frames and discolored. It does put him at ease. Long enough for him to withstand the coming pain.

The dryad makes the smallest indication of a confirmation. From behind tightly clenched lips she could hear the softest "ready".
(Azarashi)
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[20:43] Even predators can be kind and soothing, right? Or close enough for comfort. While she has once participated in bringing the dead back to life, and being an integral part of that process, today she works only with the living, namely the young Dryad.

She takes great pains to straighten the lines of her symbols, to check them against her notes, both those written on loose leaves of paper and those listed in the great time that rests at her hip.

Little is left to chance. Her work requires perfection.

"Then get ready...cuz everything's 'bout to change."

A small change, in the grand scheme of things, but an important one. Her grisly, mutated hand lifts. The spireshard gemstone, embedded in the ring which is in turn embedded in her twisted flesh, brushes against the sigil on his temple.

That little touch, an infusion of occultic mana, starts a chain reaction within the dryad. Energy spreads across the veritable crown of rune work that runs from temple to temple and across the bridge of Azarashi's nose.

That bridge of his nose is the first thing to change, widening and broadening. His eyes shift slightly further apart and he's bound to experience great amounts of pain as his bones break and moves to accommodate these changes.

Somewhere in that blinding agony, too, his very eyes undergo a change all their own. Instead of the fog lifting, as he might expect, his vision goes completely dark. While he can't see it, even if he hadn't been fully blinded, his pupils stretch into two horizontal ovals.

All things come with a price. It is time for him to begin paying it now in suffering.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[20:54] Change comes with price. The price will be pain.

It's a mantra now; He repeats it in his head to try and dull the pain. But spirits know that it won't be that easy. So now he's praying to very god, deity, spirit, lord, king, queen, peasant that the searing, crackling, crushing pain subsides.

His fragile frame convulses and claws at the table, shattering those well-kept fingernails of his. It's taking every ounce of strength to stop him from just self-destructing.

As expected of someone with virtually no pain tolerance.

The price will be pain. The price will be pain, he repeats.

"I ca-can't see, Ardith I can't see. Ple-please. Stop please. I can't see," He chokes. It's no longer the pain that's wiping at his sanity. It's the fear and uncertainty that came at him like a sledgehammer. Was this a betrayal? Did she lie?

"No, No more, Ardith please. I can't see. I'm scared, Ardith. I'm so scared."

Balls in her court now. What's next?
(Azarashi)
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[20:59] Ardith keeps him from thrashing too much by shifting her hand from brushing against his temple to sprawling against his chest and pressing him down onto the worktable. She can't otherwise keep the dryad from thrashing in that small radius however, or stand in the way of him shattering his own nails.

Through his fear, through his pain, she hushes him again.

"Shhh…Listen, lil' buck. Shhh."

The Accursed is many things. Is a liar among that list?

"When things get broken, it takes time for 'em to heal again. But when they heal they'll be better and stronger than they were before," she croons.

"That's what ya wanted, ain't it? Better? Stronger? To undo what Fate made ya?"

He sure as Hel can't see it, but a hand comes up to cup his cheek before it's removed.

"You ain't gotta be scared. I'm takin' care of ya. Like I promised. Trust me."

She urges him to sit up and begins winding something soft over his eyes. A few rounds of linen bandages layered over his vision and around his head.
(Ardith Hirai)
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[21:05] All rational thought has left the premises. At this point, besides wanting the pain to stop, he needed physical comfort. Azarashi ignored the fiery pain that congregated at his fingertips.

He so desperately wanted to believe Ardith. But between the throbbing pain in his head and his newfound mutation, it was hard to listen to anything. So instead he opted to focus on the tone of her voice.

Unable to speak coherently, he made small grunts in response. If it wasn't completely black before, the bandages around his eyes finished the job.

The dryad couldn't find the strength to lift his arms to prod around. So he sat up in a pool of his own sweat and blood, leaving his fate up to the Accursed.
(Azarashi)
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[21:11] That pain, when Azarashi is at his weakest and lowest, leaves him vulnerable. A good time for the Accursed to swoop in with deceptively honey-sweet words, pulling the dryad into her arms for comfort.

"It's all for the better. Ya wanna see her, don't ya? With your new eyes? All ya gotta do now is rest. Your sight'll come back to ya," she assures him. One hand, the larger, palms the back of his head entirely. The other pats his back.

He was a prime target for harm, for violence, for even death in his fragile state.

But why would Ardith destroy what belongs to her, what can be put to a greater purpose? That is just...foolish.
(Ardith Hirai)