IrateRapScallion
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Chapter 93
🕑 Added 2020-06-17 22:45:13 +0000 UTCConsciousness returned to Pari slowly, her thoughts little more than vague feelings and impressions gently drifting through her mind. All she cared about was this feeling of warmth. Warmth and safety. With each slow breath, her nostrils filled with an indescribable plethora of scents, enough to normally overwhelm her sleep-addled brain. But instead, she found herself focused on one particular scent, the strongest one of all by far. It smelled of strength and power—incredible and overwhelming—and yet she felt no fear. Instead, the scent gave her a feeling of great peace. Everything was good and right.
Her bed shifted slightly beneath her, jolting Pari just enough to cause her to open her eyes. Stretching out her arms, back, and tail, she let out a soft yawn and looked around. She sat on the edge of a tan platform up against an equally tan wall, both of which were slightly soft and incredibly warm and comfortable. Beyond the platform, however, she found a massive cavern lit by the soft light of hundreds of glowing things—bags, perhaps?—stuck to the walls and ceilings. Down below, she saw a row of thin and tall containers with lids on them and a giant table and dozens of strange devices she couldn’t even begin to understand.
Crawling towards the other side of the platform to get a closer look, Pari stopped mid-crawl as she felt an unusual tug on her head. Turning around, she found, to her befuddlement, that her hair had somehow grown out to be incredibly long, so long that it had piled up into a large heap and was dragging along the floor behind her for many body-lengths. How strange. Why was her hair so long all of a sudden? It hadn’t been like this when... when...
When what?
What had she been doing before waking up here? She could feel something there, as if she knew the answer to this question but, for some reason, the knowledge wouldn’t come to her. All she could remember was a feeling of incredible cold, a cold that had filled her to the point of numbness. This situation seemed the case with the vast majority of her memory: vague feelings and bits of general knowledge, but specifics strangely out of reach.
Before she could think too hard about this unusual discovery, Pari found herself off balance as the floor beneath her suddenly moved. Steadying herself with her hand as the platform shifted, she watched in awe as it moved away from the wall. Pari’s gaze rose up the wall to find a giant eyeball staring back at her. Wait, that wasn’t a wall at all! And the floor she sat on, it wasn’t a floor, either!
Pari couldn’t believe her eyes. A lizard! The biggest lizard she had ever seen, and it was holding her in the palm of its hand! Try as she might, she couldn’t wrap her young brain around the sheer size of the tan beast. It was bigger than a house! No, it was bigger than three houses! No, it was bigger than five-
“CHILD HAS FINALLY AWOKEN.”
Pari let out a scream and clutched at her head as something seemed to connect to her mind, an unstoppable torrent of meaning blasting into her head. What she felt wasn’t pain in the usual sense, but more of a complete overwhelming of her mind, like being thrown into deep water when you don’t know how to swim and drowning in it. The foreign meaning engulfed her and, like deep water pouring down her throat, she found her mind unable to hold it back. Her heart raced uncontrollably. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.
Before she could regain herself, she felt the floor beneath her shift again as the hand lifted her up beside the giant eyeball. The huge slit pupil contracted as the lizard focused in on her.
“CHILD HURT?”
Pari screamed again as a second wave battered at her soul. It still threatened to suck her under, but for some reason, it didn’t feel as bad as the first time.
“WHAT WRONG WITH CHILD?”
A third surge, this one even easier to tolerate than the last. Pari found herself on her back, her lungs huffing and puffing as she desperately drew air. Her heart was still racing and her body was slick with sweat, but it felt like she had finally made it to the surface of the water and was coming up for air.
“INTRIGUING.”
The lizard. It was talking to her. That was where the voice came from, the one that bellowed in her head. She could finally keep her head above water well enough to understand what was happening. Weakly, she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and stared back into the massive orb.
It was strange, but she felt no fear from the lizard’s gaze. She knew that it would not hurt her; she could smell it. Its scent... it was the same scent she had smelled before, the one that made her feel relaxed and safe. Nor did she see anything but curiosity in its gigantic eye.
“IS CHILD STILL HURT?”
Pari barely felt the torrent this time, the onrushing knowledge flowing through her like water through newly-constructed plumbing. “N-no...” she replied before letting out a cough.
“HMMMM...” it growled thoughtfully. “THIS ONE IS CALLED BAZZALTH. DOES CHILD HAVE NAME?”
Pari thought about her name, her blurry memory still almost entirely unusable. But within it, she could feel a name, her name. Pari. Yes, it felt right. That was her name. But was that all of her name? She couldn’t help but feel like there was more to it, but try as she might, no answer came.
“Pari,” she finally informed him. Bazzalth was a “him”, she knew now. She’d felt it in his name.
“I SEE. PARI-CHILD SLEPT TWELVE DAYS. IS PARI-CHILD HUNGRY?”
Now that he mentioned it, Pari realized that she was, in fact, extremely hungry. Seeing the look in her eyes, Bazzalth reached down somewhere with his other hand and brought up what looked like a large leg from an animal she didn’t recognize. Suddenly a large flame sprung up from nowhere beneath the leg as Bazzalth held the meat in front of Pari. Soon the leg began to sizzle and drip hot fat onto his skin, but the lizard didn’t seem to mind it nor the flame just above his palm.
“UNABLE TO EAT RAW MEAT... HMPH!” the gigantic creature snorted derisively. “CRAWLERS ARE SO WEAK.”
A few moments later, Pari found herself chowing down on the greatest meal she’d ever eaten. She took bite after bite until she felt like she could barely move, whereupon she laid back down on her backside to digest and let out a groan.
“PARI-CHILD HURT?” Bazzalth immediately inquired as he removed the remaining meat.
“I... I... I...”
Each time she tried to speak, something within Pari seemed to get in the way. It was like there was a battle happening between the fuzzy part of her that was sure this was how everybody talked and a much more concrete part that insisted that it was incorrect.
“Pari is alright, Pari is just full,” she told him, the mental battle coming to a close. This felt much better. No, not just better. It felt right and natural. This was how normal people talked.
Her words seemed to mollify him for the moment, and he slowly lowered his palm down to the floor below and set her on more solid ground. Her curiosity returning now that she felt satisfied, Pari took in Bazzalth’s full form for the first time. She couldn’t get over just how big he was. From his massive claws to his giant teeth to his humongous wings, he was by far the biggest lizard, no, the biggest living thing that she had ever seen. But was he really a lizard? She had never seen lizards with wings before.
“Are you...”
There it was again, that strange dissonance inside her telling her that the way she was speaking was wrong.
“Is Bazzalth a...”
There, that was better. But still, something felt off. Not incorrect but perhaps... incomplete?
Fortunately, Bazzalth seemed to understand her troubles and told her, “PARI-CHILD WILL CALL BAZZALTH ‘BAZZALTH-FATHER’ BECAUSE BAZZALTH GAVE PARI-CHILD LIFE.”
Pari shook her head. “No! Pari already has father!” She knew in her bones that she’d had a father, who had been much older than her and big and strong and nice and probably not a giant winged lizard. She couldn’t remember anything in particular about him, but she was sure she already had one. She didn’t need a second one.
The giant being stared down at her in disbelief. “PARI-CHILD DARES TO DISOBEY BAZZALTH?” he growled.
“Pari already has father like Pari. Pari does not need lizard father too.”
“LIZARD?!” the lizard roared. “PARI-CHILD DARES CALL BAZZALTH LIZARD?!”
Pari tilted her head in puzzlement. “Not lizard?”
“BAZZALTH IS PERSON!” thundered the giant creature. Pari immediately knew that ‘person’ meant a very different thing than what she knew. There was a weight there, with far more significance than the concept she was used to, almost like it was more ‘Person’ than ‘person’. “BAZZALTH WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH THOUGHTS! LIZARDS ARE WEAK! BAZZALTH IS MIGHTY! LIZARDS DIE EVEN QUICKER THAN CRAWLERS! BAZZALTH HAS LIVED FOR MILLENNIA!”
Pari frowned as Bazzalth continued to rage. He really didn’t seem to like being called a lizard, but she couldn’t call him a father either. What to do? Suddenly her ears perked up as the answer came to her.
“Grandfather!”
Bazzalth’s tirade came to a confused halt. “GRANDFATHER?”
“Bazzalth-grandfather is bigger and stronger and older than father, so Bazzalth-grandfather is grandfather!” she happily declared, nodding her head at her own smartness. It made the best, most perfect sense.
Bazzalth blinked.
“THAT IS...” He let out what felt like a Person’s equivalent of a sigh. “...ACCEPTABLE.”
Pari smiled in satisfaction. Now that this issue was out of the way, she could move on to the important things.
“Bazzalth-grandfather, Pari is bored. Pari wants to make candles!”
* * *
Pari watched as a single drop of her blood fell from the tiny cut on her arm and landed on the large bone plate below. Hundreds of tiny rainbow dots, brilliant in their resplendence, spritzed into the air as the drop traveled through it, only to increase a hundredfold when the drop splattered onto the flat bone by her feet. Backing away, she looked up at her grandfather as he studied a variety of instruments, each pointed towards the reaction happening on the plate.
“Bazzalth-grandfather need more blood?” she asked the massive Person as he leaned over one of the instruments, studying something she couldn’t see. Something about light? And “phase-shift vibrations”? She didn’t understand, but that was okay because she was just a kid!
“NO, THIS IS ENOUGH. PARI-CHILD LET OUT JUST ENOUGH. PARI-CHILD IS GOOD CHILD.”
Her smile as wide as a mountain, Pari let out a delighted giggle as a blast of happiness surged through her. She loved it when Bazzalth-grandfather complimented her. It made her feel warm and fuzzy inside like a happy tickle, and she could never get enough of it.
“HMMM... YES... I SEE...” he muttered as he took a closer look at the instrument readings.
After living with Bazzalth-grandfather for about a year, Pari knew full well that he went into his own little world whenever he started mumbling to himself. That meant we wouldn’t need her for at least an hour, and that meant that she had time for her favorite activity.
First, however, she needed to make sure that the cut on her arm had stopped bleeding. Her blood was very special, after all. Bazzalth-grandfather had been very insistent that she understand this, and that she couldn’t go around bleeding on things. Pari was a little confused since his blood was multicolored just like hers, but she listened because she was a good child. Listening and obeying made Bazzalth-grandfather happy, and she wanted to make him happy because she loved Bazzalth-grandfather with all her heart. Bazzalth-grandfather was the Person who took care of her. He fed her, washed her, played with her, and even slept with her. Yes, Bazzalth-grandfather made the best bed in the world. When she drifted off the sleep every night atop his giant back, she felt like she was in the warmest, coziest, and safest place in the world. She couldn’t be happier and she felt impossibly grateful that he was her grandfather.
Luckily, the tiny cut had stopped bleeding almost immediately. Pari had become very good at bloodletting by now, given that she did it so often. Bazzalth-grandfather loved to study her. He would poke her and prod her and run all sorts of tests on her body, but more than anything, he liked to study her blood. By now, she could poke herself just enough to let out a drop or two for him and that was all. It hurt slightly, but Bazzalth-grandfather’s praise more than made up for it.
Hopping down the large steps built into the side of the massive table upon which she stood, her twenty-pace-long hair sliding along behind her, Pari made her way towards the back of the cave. There sat her greatest possession: a set of candlemaking equipment created just for her.
When she’d first awoken in Bazzalth-grandfather’s home, she’d asked to make candles. Why she had wanted to do that, she still couldn’t say; it had just felt like something she badly wanted to do. After several days of hectoring, he’d finally given in and built something for her. At first, the new set had felt wrong to use, as it hadn’t been designed for dipping—a method that had just felt natural to her. But Bazzalth-grandfather insisted that his design was far more efficient and versatile. The containers were actually molds that would let her create candles of many different shapes and sizes, and now she would even be able to add her own ingredients to the melted wax to change to aromas to her liking! She liked to add flower petals from the flowers that grew outside the cave during the summertime, as well as leaves and other plant parts. Sometimes she would grind them up for extra aromafication.
Pulling out the pieces and setting them up with a practiced hand, Pari hummed a little tune as she placed out the different ingredients she planned to use today, only for that tune to falter when she realized that she was out of wax. Well, that wasn’t a big problem. Wax was easy to get.
Standing back up, she ran back to Bazzalth-grandfather and jumped onto his tail. With a steady grace born of ample practice, she ran and climbed up the tail and onto his rear. From there, she made her way along his broad back until she was crouching atop his head. Slowly and carefully—so as not to bother him while he worked—she clambered down the side of his head to one of his ear holes and crawled inside. There, she found her bounty.
Bazzalth-grandfather’s earwax made the best candles. It lasted a very long time when burning, was hard as a rock at room temperature but was incredibly malleable when heated up, flowed easily when melted, and didn’t stick to the mold when the candle was finished. It was such a blessing that she had such a ready supply here whenever she needed it.
Slowly, she collected a large lump of the wax, making sure to be as quiet as possible—People supposedly had great hearing and she didn’t want to hurt him. Then, prize acquired, she made her way back down to the ground. Bazzalth-grandfather continued his inspection of the instruments, his behavior showing no signs that he’d even noticed her actions. That was good. He was happiest when he had something to study, and she wanted him to be happy just like how he made her happy.
“PARI-CHILD!”
Pari jumped at the sudden exclamation. Oh no, had she bothered him after all? He wasn’t looking at his devices anymore, but rather at the side of the cave near her.
“TAKE CANDLE EQUIPMENT AND HIDE UNDER PELT PILE!”
What was he talking about? Was he mad at her? Maybe she should apologize. “Pari sorry-”
“NOW!” he barked. “DO NOT COME OUT NO MATTER WHAT UNTIL BAZZALTH SAYS PARI-CHILD CAN COME OUT!”
Pari didn’t understand what was happening, but she did as she was told. Quickly scooping up all equipment and ingredients and throwing them into the sack she kept them in, she ran to the giant pile of pelts in the very back of the cave. A large mound of treated animal skins from Bazzalth-grandfather’s hunts, it served as his preferred sleeping place. She’d lain atop it many a time as well, but only tried hiding inside it once. It hadn’t worked; somehow, he’d spotted her immediately even beneath so many pelts.
Scurrying deep beneath the hundreds of furs while dragging the sack behind her, Pari finally stopped when she felt she was absolutely, completely hidden. Grabbing her hair trailing behind her, she pulled it arm by arm into the pile and held the resulting ball of hair tightly against her chest. The soft, silky feeling against her skin soothed her, but only a little.
Pari didn’t understand why Bazzalth-grandfather had told her to hide here, but the urgency in his voice worried her. He had seemed almost... afraid. But that was impossible! Bazzalth-grandfather was so incredibly strong; surely nothing could scare him, right?
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER,” a low voice, even lower than Bazzalth-grandfather’s, growled from outside the cave, “TAVRETH HAS ARRIVED.”
“ENTER, TAVRETH-SISTER. BAZZALTH WELCOMES YOU,” he replied from within.
Pari almost let out a squeak of excitement. Bazzalth-grandfather had a sister?! Would that make her Tavreth-grandmother?! Pari badly wanted to run out and meet her, but she reminded herself of Bazzalth-grandfather’s instructions and stayed still. She would be a good girl.
Pari felt the stone beneath her tremble with each approaching step as Bazzalth-grandfather’s sister entered the cave. Though she couldn’t see, Pari knew that Tavreth-maybe-grandmother had to be even larger than Bazzalth-grandfather, for while Bazzalth-grandfather’s steps shook the floor, they never did so this heavily.
Then Pari caught a whiff of her, and her entire body shivered involuntarily. She’d never smelled something so powerful before! Tavreth-maybe-grandmother’s power dwarfed Bazzalth-grandfather’s with ease, to the point that it made Pari afraid. If Tavreth-maybe-grandmother got mad at Bazzalth-grandfather, things would be very bad for him!
“TAVRETH-SISTER IS LATE. TAVRETH-SISTER SAID SHE WOULD ARRIVE HALF-YEAR AGO.”
“TAVRETH HAD OTHER ITEMS OF IMPORTANCE TO ATTEND TO.”
“SUCH AS?”
“ITEMS THAT ARE NOT OF BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S CONCERN.”
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S LAIR HAS CHANGED MUCH.”
“NOT SURPRISING. TAVRETH-SISTER HAS NOT ENTERED FOR MANY YEARS.”
“INDEED. HOW GROWS BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S HOARD?”
“VERY WELL. BAZZALTH HAS MADE MANY ENLIGHTENING DISCOVERIES THESE LAST DECADES AND LEARNED MUCH.”
“TAVRETH CAN SEE THIS. BAZZALTH-BROTHER IS FAR MORE CONTENT THAN CENTURIES PAST. THIS PLEASES TAVRETH.”
“WHAT OF TAVRETH-SISTER? BAZZALTH FEELS THAT TAVRETH-SISTER’S STRENGTH RISES GREATLY WITH EACH PASSING YEAR.”
“INDEED, TAVRETH’S HOARD HAS GROWN TREMENDOUSLY AS OF LATE. BUT ENOUGH TIME WASTING. CRAWLERS HAVE OPENED ANOTHER MINE.”
“THEY NEVER CEASE. TRULY STUPID BEASTS, UNABLE TO LEARN FROM PAST EVENTS.”
“MINE WAS FOUND IN VALLEY BETWEEN ARGAS PEAK AND VINERA PEAK.”
“BAZZALTH WILL TAKE CARE OF PROBLEM.”
“TAVRETH KNOWS BAZZALTH-BROTHER WILL. HOWEVER, TAVRETH CAME FOR OTHER REASON.”
“WHAT REASON?”
“THIS REASON.”
“THIS-! KAERSHA! TAVRETH-SISTER!”
A low, rumbling laugh shook the cave.
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER CAN FEEL KAERSHA AURA, YES? BAZZALTH-BROTHER WISHES TO BURN FLOWERS TO CINDERS, YES?”
Pari wished she could be out there with them to see and understand what would make Bazzalth-grandfather so appalled, but she could not leave hiding. She could only lie beneath the soft furs and wait when he told her to come back out. But then her nose picked up on a new scent, something unlike anything she’d ever sensed before.
It would have been hard for her to properly describe the aroma in normal terms. On the one hand, it smelled like a flower, with all the adjectives that came with that. But what mattered was that it also smelled... wrong. Like something that needed to be crushed and eradicated on sight. She could feel her heart begin to race inside her tiny chest, her blood seeming to heat up from nothing more than smelling the scent. Something in the back of her mind screamed that whatever it was that this other Person had brought was an atrocity that needed to be wiped from existence immediately. In fact, just the act of bringing such a thing was enough for Pari to downgrade Tavreth-maybe-grandmother to Tavreth-not-grandmother. Judging from Bazzalth-grandfather’s aghast tone, he agreed with Pari’s loathing.
“WHY HAS TAVRETH-SISTER NOT PURGED KAERSHA ON SIGHT?”
“BECAUSE TAVRETH IS STRONG. TAVRETH WILL NOT BOW TO SUCH PETTY INSTINCT. NOR SHALL BAZZALTH-BROTHER. BAZZALTH-BROTHER SHARES TAVRETH’S PROUD AND STRONG ANCESTRY.”
“WHAT? TAVRETH-SISTER CANNOT MEAN-”
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER WILL FIND SECRETS OF KAERSHA FLOWERS FOR TAVRETH.”
“BAZZALTH CANNOT! EVEN IF TAVRETH-SISTER REQUESTS-”
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER, TAVRETH DOES NOT REQUEST.”
The final word hit Pari like a brick to the face and she involuntarily gasped. Horrified, she covered her mouth with her hands, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. Pari’s sensitive ears picked up the sound of the powerful being sniffing the air.
“TAVRETH SMELLS CRAWLER,” Tavreth-not-grandmother growled, her deep voice dripping with chilling menace. “WHY DOES BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S LAIR SMELL OF CRAWLERS?”
“SMELL COMES FROM CRAWLER CORPSES NEEDED FOR EXPERIMENTS,” came the calm reply. “CRAWLER EXPERIMENTS HAVE YIELDED MUCH DATA OVER PAST YEAR AND GREATLY INCREASED HOARD.”
Pari held her breath as a chilling silence filled the cave for a moment that seemed to go on for eternity.
“VERY WELL, DEAD CRAWLERS ARE ACCEPTABLE,” Tavreth-not-grandmother finally replied, her voice still cold and dangerous. “BUT BAZZALTH-BROTHER KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF LIVE CRAWLERS ARE FOUND.”
“BAZZALTH KNOWS. BAZZALTH WOULD NEVER DO SOMETHING FORBIDDEN.”
“BAZZALTH-BROTHER WILL STUDY THE PLANTS. TAVRETH WILL RETURN IN SEVERAL YEARS TO SEE WHAT BAZZALTH-BROTHER HAS FOUND. DO NOT DISAPPOINT TAVRETH OR ELSE.”
“BAZZALTH WILL DO AS TAVRETH SISTER DEMANDS.”
“GOOD.”
Pari heard and felt the other Person’s heavy footsteps turning and leaving the cave and she let out that long-held breath. Stirring for a moment, she made to get out from under the bedding but halted when she realized that Bazzalth-grandfather had not yet told her to come out. So she waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, after what felt like nearly an hour, she heard him tell her to come forth.
“Bazzalth-grandfather, who was that?” she asked, looking around for the source of that terrible aroma but finding nothing immediately.
“TAVRETH-SISTER IS BAZZALTH’S OLDER SISTER. TAVRETH-SISTER RAISED BAZZALTH FROM HATCHING MANY CENTURIES AGO.”
“Does that mean Pari must say ‘Tavreth-grandmother’? Because Pari doesn’t want to do that. Tavreth-not-grandmother is very mean to Bazzalth-grandfather.”
With a massive hand, her grandfather carefully scooped her up and raised her to his eye level. “LISTEN CAREFULLY, PARI-CHILD. PARI-CHILD CAN REFER TO TAVRETH-SISTER AS ‘TAVRETH-PERSON’, BUT PARI-CHILD MUST NEVER ALLOW TAVRETH-SISTER TO SEE PARI-CHILD. IF TAVRETH-SISTER FINDS PARI-CHILD, TAVRETH-SISTER WILL KILL PARI-CHILD WITHOUT QUESTION.”
“Tavreth-Person scares Pari,” she admitted glumly. “Pari felt like Tavreth-Person did not even care about Bazzalth-grandfather at all.”
Her grandfather let out a long hiss that she recognized as his version of a sigh.
“TAVRETH-SISTER DOES CARE ABOUT BAZZALTH-BROTHER, JUST AS TAVRETH-SISTER CARES ABOUT ALL OF TAVRETH-SISTER’S BROTHERS AND SISTERS. BUT BAZZALTH DOES BELIEVE THAT DEEP DOWN, TAVRETH-SISTER TRULY CARES ONLY ABOUT TWO THINGS: HER HOARD AND... ONE OTHER THING.”
“What’s that?”
“BETTER THAT PARI-CHILD NOT KNOW.”
“But-”
“NO.”
Pari’s tail waved back and forth intermittently as her grandfather’s refusal sent her into a pout. But unlike normal, her antics did little to sway her beloved companion and she quickly found herself losing steam and moving to other topics.
“Bazzalth-grandfather, what is ‘Kaersha’?” When she’d head the word uttered by Bazzalth-grandfather, she’d felt with it a raw, violent disgust.
“THAT WHICH MUST NOT EXIST,” he answered.
“So Kaersha is bad thing? If Kaersha bad, then why not destroy like Bazzalth-grandfather wants to?”
“BECAUSE TAVRETH-SISTER IS TOO STRONG. BAZZALTH CANNOT DISOBEY,” he growled. He twisted his head back and forth forcefully as if trying to dislodge a particularly nasty thought from within. “THAT IS ALL BAZZALTH WILL SPEAK OF KAERSHA.”
“What about ‘Hoard’? What is ‘Hoard’?” she asked. Like with ‘Kaersha’, Pari felt a feeling that she had trouble comprehending, but this one was quite different. If she had to describe it, the word she would use was ‘hunger’, but that did not fully encapsulate the true meaning contained within the word.
“HMMM, PERHAPS NOW IS GOOD TIME TO TEACH PARI-CHILD.”
“Yay!” Pari chirped, plopping down onto the palm beneath her.
“EVERY PERSON DESIRES SOMETHING WITH GREAT NEED. DESIRE IS LIKE HOLE INSIDE THAT MUST BE FILLED AT ALL COSTS, BUT NO MATTER HOW MUCH IS PUT IN HOLE, HOLE NEVER FILLED. NEED TO FILL HOLE DRIVES PERSON, GUIDES WAY PERSON LIVES. IN MANY WAYS, PERSON’S HOARD DEFINES THEM.”
“What kind of things do People desire so much?” Pari wondered.
“DIFFERENT FOR EACH PERSON. CAN BE ANY THING, LIKE GOLD, TREES, OR EVEN FIRE. BUT CAN ALSO BE ABSTRACT THINGS INSTEAD.”
“Pari doesn’t understand what ‘abstract thing’ is,” she told him as she rubbed her head in confusion.
“ABSTRACT THINGS ARE CONCEPTS. ABSTRACTS THINGS CANNOT BE TOUCHED, BUT STILL EXIST.”
“What does Bazzalth-grandfather hoard?” Pari wondered, looking around. He sure had a lot of stuff, but it was all different stuff. Well, except... “Does Bazzalth-grandfather hoard pelts?”
The giant Person chuffed in amusement.
“NO, PARI-CHILD. BAZZALTH’S HOARD IS ABSTRACT. BAZZALTH HOARDS KNOWLEDGE.”
“Ah?” Once more, like with ‘Person’, Pari felt that the way he said ‘Knowledge’ carried more significance than a normal ‘knowledge’.
“BAZZALTH FEELS NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING THAT CAN BE KNOWN. HOARD DRIVES ALL THAT BAZZALTH DOES. HOARD IS REASON WHY PARI-CHILD LIVES.”
“Really?” In that case, Hoards were surely good things. “Can Pari have Hoard?”
“PERHAPS. DOES PARI-CHILD FEEL TREMENDOUS NEED FOR THING?”
“Ummmm...” Pari thought about it for a good while. Was there something she felt she needed? Something she desired with incredible intensity? “Candles?”
Bazzalth-grandfather chuffed again, louder this time. “PARI-CHILD IS STILL VERY YOUNG. HOARD IS NOT ALWAYS CLEAR UNTIL PERSON HAS GROWN. THINK ABOUT HOARD, AND NATURE OF PARI-CHILD’S HOARD WILL BECOME CLEAR WITH TIME.”
“What is Tavreth-Person’s Hoard?”
Bazzalth-grandfather went still for a moment. He blinked slowly as if recalling an unwanted memory.
“POWER.”
* * *
Pari stared at the flowers growing in their sealed terrarium with hatred. At first, she had hated them due to the way their scent seemed to set something off deep inside her. Now, two years later, she hated them for an entirely different reason: ever since Tavreth-Person had arrived that fateful day, Bazzalth-grandfather had started paying more attention to those stupid plants than to her!
Yes, sometimes he would still study her, but those times were few and far between. Instead, he spent the vast majority of his time growing and researching the plants that Tavreth-Person had forced upon him.
Pari hated those stupid flowers with a boundless passion. She loathed their stupid nine lavender petals speckled with pitch-black dots. She despised the way the petals rose and twisted around each other in a complex multi-petal spiral. She detested their smell, their shape, and the feeling she felt whenever she got too close to them. She hated everything about them and wished she could burn them all.
But she couldn’t. Bazzalth-grandfather would get in trouble if she did. She didn’t want that to happen because of her, even if she felt like he would be happier with those evil things gone. Even though his efforts to study the flowers increased his Hoard, the Knowledge he gained didn’t seem to improve his spirits in the same way that studying other things had.
Speaking of Hoards, even after pondering for two years, Pari remained at a loss over what her Hoard should be. The thought distressed her. What if she didn’t have a Hoard at all? How would she be able to be like Bazzalth-grandfather without a Hoard? It was impossible!
Pari shook her head to clear her thoughts. She wasn’t supposed to be worrying about that sort of thing right now. Right now, she was supposed to be training her Observations as Bazzalth-grandfather had instructed.
Sitting with her back against the warm stone cave wall, Pari snapped her fingers in her right hand, summoning a small flame the size of a candle flame at best. For a moment, she watched the fire dance above her fingertips. Then, she concentrated, willing the fire to grow. The flame expanded, reaching twice its original size, then three times, before suddenly vanishing from existence.
Pari gasped as she felt the now-familiar cold, tired, empty sensation spread from her core throughout her body. Tears of failure and disappointment filled her eyes. Even after two years, she couldn’t do it no matter how hard she tried. She sniffed loudly, rubbing away the mucus threatening to drip from her nose.
“PARI-CHILD SAD?” Bazzalth-grandfather’s voice asked from nearby, causing Pari to jump in surprise. She’d been so wrapped up in her feelings that she hadn’t even noticed him approaching.
“Pari tried so hard, but Pari still can’t get stronger,” she sniffed.
“HMMMM, YES,” Bazzalth-grandfather replied, looking at her in this way he sometimes did where he looked at her but it didn’t feel like he was seeing her. “PARI-CHILD’S SOUL HAS NOT GROWN SINCE DAY BAZZALTH GAVE PARI-CHILD LIFE, AND PARI-CHILD’S BODY GROWS MUCH SLOWER THAN NORMAL. PARI-CHILD IS UNIQUE. PARI-CHILD IS SPECIAL.”
Pari’s spirits sank. For once, being told she was special didn’t feel good at all.
“IF TRAINING AND PRACTICE WILL NOT MAKE PARI-CHILD STRONGER, THEN BAZZALTH WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY. PARI-CHILD MUST GET STRONG QUICKLY.”
“But why? Why must Pari get strong?” she asked him, not for the first time.
“BAZZALTH WILL TELL PARI-CHILD WHEN-” Bazzalth-grandfather froze, his gaze taking on a far-off look. Then he blinked and his gaze returned to normal, but Pari could see the tension in his massive frame. “HIDE.”
Pari didn’t need to be told twice. Sprinting over to her candlemaking set—thankfully already stored in its sack—she grabbed it and carried it to the pelt bed. Like she had several years ago, she crawled into the mound of hundreds and hundreds of pelts while pulling her equipment along behind her. This time, however, her curiosity got the better of her and she repositioned herself so that she could see out of one eye through a tiny hole in the pile of furs.
Soon enough, another Person—clearly Tavreth-Person—entered the chamber, her dark blue form towering over Pari’s already gigantic tan grandfather. After the two exchanged greetings, Tavreth-Person immediately got down to business.
“SHOW TAVRETH BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S PROGRESS,” she ordered. “WHAT HAS BAZZALTH LEARNED? WHAT HAS BAZZALTH CREATED?”
In response, Bazzalth-grandfather pulled out a vial filled with a liquid as black as the blackest night, so dark that it seemed to swallow the light around it. Pari recognized the liquid as one she’d seen before, though only in glimpses. Her grandfather seemed intent on keeping her away from anything related to those terrible plants, and given the way they made her feel, she didn’t disagree with his decision.
“BAZZALTH CREATED SUBSTANCE MOST VILE. PURE, CONCENTRATED KAERSHA. TAKE. BAZZALTH DESIRES TO NEVER SEE LIQUID AGAIN.”
Carefully, Tavreth-Person took the proffered container in one oversized hand, careful to not break it with her giant, deadly claws. She looked at it with wonder and delight. “TELL TAVRETH OF BLACK LIQUID’S PROPERTIES.”
“LIQUID CORRUPTS, TWISTS LIFEFORCE INTO SOULFORCE, EATS AWAY AT BEING UNTIL NOTHING REMAINS.”
“INCREDIBLE. BAZZALTH HAS TESTED SUBSTANCE?”
Her grandfather grumbled. “TESTED ON CRAWLERS DURING PATROLS.”
“WHAT OF PEOPLE?”
“NO.” He took a deep breath to gather his courage. “BAZZALTH WILL NOT TEST ON PEOPLE, EVEN IF TAVRETH-SISTER COMMANDS. VILE SUBSTANCE IS ANATHEMA TO PEOPLE, WOULD LIKELY CAUSE GREAT REACTION.”
“OH?” his sister replied with a chuckle. “THEN TAVRETH KNOWS PERFECT TEST SUBJECT. BAZZALTH HAS DONE WELL.”
“BAZZALTH THANKS TAVRETH-SISTER. BAZZALTH HAS DONE AS TAVRETH-SISTER ORDERED. BAZZALTH IS FINISHED STUDYING KAERSHA FLOWERS.”
“NO. MORE CAN BE DISCOVERED. BAZZALTH WILL CONTINUE STUDIES.”
“BUT-”
Faster than Pari could blink, Tavreth-Person struck. Her body moving like lightning, far faster than anything that large should ever be able to move, she grabbed Bazzalth-grandfather by the throat and slammed him into the nearby wall as easily as Bazzalth-grandfather lifted Pari into the air. The wall cracked and the cave quaked violently, with several large rocks breaking off of the ceiling and crashing down upon the unlucky devices beneath them.
“TAVRETH TIRES OF BAZZALTH-BROTHER’S INSUBORDINATION,” she growled, her deep voice causing the air to tremble with sheer menace. “DOES TAVRETH HAVE TO REMIND BAZZALTH-BROTHER OF HIS PLACE?”
Bazzalth’s body shook as he struggled against her grip, but his efforts were pointless against her overwhelming strength. He coughed and gagged as her clawed hand slowly crushed his windpipe bit by bit.
“BAZZALTH UNDERSTANDS,” he gasped out. “BAZZALTH WILL DO AS TAVRETH-SISTER SAYS, SO RELEASE BAZZALTH.”
“NO, NOT YET,” she hissed, her hand clenching with even greater strength to draw another round of pained spasms from her brother. “TAVRETH CAN SMELL IT. TAVRETH CAN SMELL CRAWLERS HERE AGAIN. LIVE CRAWLERS.”
“NO-”
“TAVRETH REMINDS BAZZALTH-BROTHER THAT TAVRETH CAN TELL IF BAZZALTH BROTHER LIES.”
Pari clutched desperately at her hair and the surrounding pelts as she watched her grandfather twitch once more and let out another strangled cough, her heart beating fearfully in her chest. This big, terrible meanie kept hurting her beloved companion!
“SPEAK!” Tavreth-meanie snarled, her wrathful gaze boring down onto her brother.
“...BAZZALTH HAS... KEPT NO... LIVE CRAWLERS...” he slowly wheezed.
Tavreth-meanie’s grip tightened once more, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him with alarming intensity for several long moments. Then, to Pari’s relief, she dropped Bazzalth-grandfather to the ground and turned towards the cave entrance.
“BAZZALTH WILL STUDY KAERSHA FLOWERS MORE AND PRODUCE MORE RESULTS,” she stated as nonchalantly as if she were talking about the weather. “TAVRETH WILL RETURN ONCE MORE IN SEVERAL YEARS. DO NOT DISAPPOINT TAVRETH.”
And with that, she entered the tunnel and was gone.
Pari knew that she was not supposed to leave until her grandfather said she could, but this time she couldn’t help herself. She remained beneath the pelts as long as she could force herself to, but eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore. Pulling herself free, she ran across the cavern to her beloved companion as fast as her tiny legs could manage. For his part, Bazzalth-grandfather had not moved since being released, outside of the slow rise and fall of his chest. He laid still on his back, wings tucked beneath him, as Pari ran up to his side.
“Bazzalth-grandfather!” she cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks. She wanted to see where he was hurt, but she was so small in comparison that she couldn’t even see the top of his throat.
her grandfather let out a hearty cough. “CALM, PARI-CHILD,” he said, his voice lacking the strength that she was used to hearing in it. “BAZZALTH WILL RECOVER QUICKLY. BAZZALTH HAS LIVED THROUGH WORSE. MUCH WORSE.”
“Pari was so scared!” she sobbed, the tears not stopping. “Bazzalth-grandfather lied and Pari thought that Tavreth-meanie would hurt Bazzalth-grandfather!”
“HMMMM... TAVRETH-SISTER DID NOT HURT BAZZALTH BECAUSE BAZZALTH DID NOT LIE.”
“But Pari is crawler!”
“PARI-CHILD IS NOT CRAWLER.”
“B-but Pari looks like crawler! Pari is small like crawler! Pari has no wings, like crawler!”
“NO, PARI-CHILD IS WRONG. PARI-CHILD IS NOT CRAWLER, PARI-CHILD IS BAZZALTH’S IMPORTANT DATA.”
Pari gasped, the flow of her tears quickly drying up as she processed the meaning of her grandfather’s statement. “Pari fills Bazzalth-grandfather’s Hoard?!”
“BETTER THAN ANY OTHER.”
“Really?!”
“INDEED.”
Unable to contain herself, Pari jumped forward and latched onto the side of her grandfather’s face, rubbing her face against his hide and purring up a storm. To say that she filled his Hoard was to say that she helped complete him. It was the nicest thing that anybody had ever said to her.
“Pari loves Bazzalth-grandfather very much!” she declared.
Bazzalth-grandfather grumbled to himself and let out a hissing sigh. “PARI-CHILD, LISTEN WELL,” he finally told her. “PARI-CHILD MUST TRAIN EXTRA HARD NOW. LITTLE TIME REMAINS.”
“Ah? Pari does not understand.”
“BAZZALTH CANNOT PROTECT PARI-CHILD FOR MUCH LONGER. PARI-CHILD MUST GET STRONGER, SO PARI-CHILD CAN SURVIVE WHEN PARI-CHILD MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE.”
Comments
IrateRapScallion
Been holding on to that card for a long time :p Thanks for the typo
Newguy Roy
Pari finally stopped when she felt she was far [enough,]? absolutely completely hidden Also, I laughed out loud when we had the great reveal of exactly what constitutes Pari's candles' wax.
Erdos
Thanks
