10-20-2021, 08:50 PM
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Like distant stars illuminating a cloudless night sky, the mountain began to twinkle. Tiny orbs of soft light flickering into existence. Their glow illuminating a dark path which wound up and up. It seemed straightforward enough, and without too much thought nor hesitation, Etojo pressed on. The night air grew colder here. Small swirls of snow catching the breeze as he trudged up the mountain path. An eerie desolation humming along with the wind gusts, rattling the brittle sticks of a mane that was all that remained of his former self. The flowers twinkled, the wind howled, the snows in the distance swirled. And suddenly, Etojo was no longer alone. Seemingly made from ice and chiseled in a whirlwind of snow flurries, creatures staggered out into the night. Their crystalline bodies illuminated by the soft glow radiating off the petals of the mountain flowers. Etojo stopped in his tracks, momentarily gobsmacked. More and more of them popping through the shadowy shroud of night, beginning to exist. My god they were ugly. Big and lumbersome in overall size and how they moved, though there was a lanky thinness to their crystalline limbs which he began to recognise, plus a perceptible brittleness to the pointed shards of ice of their unnatural manes. And Etojo's grimace of shock twisted into horror. They were crystalline ice giant versions of him… An eerie riddle again pierced the gloom, but it hardly registered this time. Etojo's senses rather more centred on the physical threat massing before him. With their lumbering walk and heavy footedness they seemed to draw the attention of one another. The crashing sound of their ice rock hooves whacking the ground sending the others into a raging frenzy. Stomping towards one another, jaws widening to release maddening roars. It seemed the situation was intensifying rather rapidly. But they also didn't seem necessarily attracted to him, rather loud sounds… That seemed promising. At first. But it soon became clear that they needn't be after him to be dangerous. They attacked one another with brutal force. Spikes of ice careening through the air and icy body parts flung skyward, falling back down earthbound as dangerous as boulders. There was no sneaking, no scheming, and no little soldiers to sacrifice this time. Etojo had no option but to run. Soon enough his lungs burned and his legs grew heavy as if made of ice themselves. And somewhere deep in his side by his ribs, there was a sharp twisting pain that came on suddenly with each gasping breath. The mountain was a monster in itself. A large ice chunk of a head swooshed past him. How he had avoided the big really dangerous chunks thus far he didn't ponder. Though his flesh now glimmered with cuts that weren't from tree branches. Another icy chunk crashed onto his hip. Big enough to spin him off course momentarily though not large enough to down him, not yet. Eventually he reached some sort of peak. He realised in a daze as his head thumped into something hard. The glow of the flowers merging with the twinkling stars above as his head spun and he tumbled unnaturally down the otherside. Etojo found a solidness sometime later. His shoulder colliding first with a firm but giving enough sand as he slid to a halt. Fine traces of red dust irritating his throat and eyes as braved enough to open them, peering out into more bloody darkness. Then find me in the red desert… How? Etojo groaned inwardly as he attempted to heave his bruised and battered body upright. There was nothing to find here, nothing but more darkness and a fog growing so thick there was no longer a night sky. |