They are what they are, writhing shadows born upon Pangea in form of serpents whose scales glisten and shimmer: whose bodies entwine and fangs drip with venom. They are bloodied and dangerous, creatures that like a festering wound, poison the world around them- and she cannot help but chuckle at the irony of it: smile and mind the way they appear with hoods spread and tongue flickering in the air.
She has dealt with serpents before.
To Rajanish she looks, his footsteps had given him away: and she minds the sway and posture, the way he carries himself. Earth and dark the color is something akin to the soil and stone, and she notes the condition of her form with particular interest. Grinning and maddened she can see reflection of chaos in him, and it provokes no sensation other than austere fixation. Her ears bend and Yidhra tilts her head suddenly, drawing herself up and standing at full height, those eerie teal eyes flecked with orange and the barbell shapes irises expand as she focuses on him.
Though she does not immediately respond, she considers each word: each accented lilt and purr: the slurring of consonance and all the depth of the voice itself. She does hide her shape, nor the mutable form of it: the change that has rippled so strongly it alters muscle and bone.
From her shoulders the paddle-tipped appendages stretch and reach up- the porous and fleshy skin tangled together as she presses them against her cheek and cranes her head: faking a cooing noise that whistles through the beak and mass of tentacles on her maw. “So sweet of you, pet.” she purrs, intentionally slurring the ‘s’ sounds and hissing them akin the serpent. Yet there is no disguising what she does next, and suddenly the maw splays the tentacles and exposes the blackened beak. Razor-sharp and dagger-like it chatters and clacks together in a snapping sound that mocks laughter and smiles, so exuberant in fact, that for a moment she ignored the trickling blue blood dripping along the barbed tendrils.
“To compliment after speaking so openly of business and purpose.” harsh and ancient her smoky voice is deep and laced with malice, honeyed; but in a way that sours in the end of it. Had she the ability to sneer, she might have, and instead she does something to convey that… the beak clashing and snapping: her tongue inside of it layered with abrasive radula that is exposed until the grows quiet.
“You should really see me in a crown.” she chuckles, darkly. “I look even better.”
Yet he not the the only one, there are after all… two serpents.
Earthy and rotten, blackened and mouldy she can smell the detritus and rancor- the dried blood and all the bile that clings to the oily fur and skin. Flesh clings to bone and Yidhra notes the thinness and slender shape: the ribs jaunting out and stretched beneath the skin, and for a moment she recalls her own matted hair and pressure-ridden body; but it affects her little.
Instead she mind the close of distance with a slow stare, her head tilting and noting the monolithic stones and plateau around them: the water that runs and all the shrill wind that screams through the expanse of Pangea. What provocation, however, comes next is sudden and Yidhra darkens: laughs, and clashes the beak as water-logged laughter fills the air.
It has only been a day or so, maybe less; but she still smells the soured corpses of whales and fish: the barnacles and mollusks all rotting and fetish on tree and rock. Pulled from the ocean, she smiles at whalebone and puddles topped by a sheen of blood and humours, and this is way Zain… does not scare her, because deep down she recalls the black and quiet: the pressure and claws of beasts so alien that all the world has forgotten them. This is something she considers when she answers, when she finally speaks in her awful voice.
“Because I have the strength and to challenge for it- to be challenged for it, and the wit enough to know how to make it so the entire East does not come crashing down on this place at the slightest hint of dissatisfaction.” she is simple, to the point and clear. “It is not a matter of what pathetic favor you’ve earned from before: what tasks you’ve done in the past; but rather it is the nature of the very force you recognize as a dark God. Strength and now, the present.” poignant and calm, she lifts the same appendages on her shoulders, draws them up and slides one along the edge of her beak.
Austere and severe she glances at both Rajanish and Zain. “Because I have the assured knowledge on how to make sure what purpose I serve comes to fruition: you?” she points first to Rajanish. “I invite you to challenge this.” and then she gestures to Zain with her tendril. “You as well, I’ve heard the plain have been distinctly absent blood for some time. My maker,” she pauses to study them, the Kraken’s gaze heavier and rapt upon them. “Would likely have quite a bit of fun watching: and seeing the end result.”
It lacks subtlety, and Yidhra does not disguise the malevolence nor try to sweeten it into anything more than what it is.
Yidhra