“Monster? I admire your perspicacity; but the truth is… I am only a monster because I am not afraid to turn the very darkness against itself. Martyrdom is a coat I wear well, and sacrifice is my closest companion. I have long, long been unafraid of the truth: I only wish you could be. I do require help, after all.” she’d have sneered; but she lacks a face, and instead her beak chatters and claps together in something akin to amusement.
Hers is a breath that rattles through water-logged flesh and forces the saturated tissue to know the burden of air: the harsh reality of her changing worlds. She speaks with an echo, with a depth of voice so sultry and yet smoky that is borders seductive and predatory; but more so notable is the way the brine colors her accent. The sound and purr of a creature long asleep beneath the waves: whose empires have come and gone, and there is a deathly gasp… a choking and coughing that echoes of drowning and yet?
Yidhra stood before Delta with seemingly careless eyes.
She lifts a single forelegs when the boy begins to trembles, as around her the world seems to blur and she focuses on Delta. In his mind she feels the weaving strings of emotion, tastes the sweetened liquor of dread and suffering; but most of all, she recognizes that dark shadow in his mind that calls out to her in a way a child cries for its own mother. His fear is black and harsh, and buried beneath a thousand smaller nightmares- in such a way that as she pushes her first thought… she can see them light up.
“The world is cruel place, my darling boy,” she speaks. Voracious and malevolent, her legs stepping around him as she half-circles like a shark. Tentacles plucking and reaching out to stroke and rub his neck, to push away the hair and to make sure she can see the eyes rolling backwards. His heartbeat is warm, fast, and and the blood pours through him like a howling choir. “So frightened- so young… alone and scared, lost with no one to save you from the fate you’ve wrought upon yourself. Your sickness… your infection, you gave yourself this plague by even allowing those precious lungs of yours to inhale this rotten… wretched air.”
Nearest his body she stops and as he begins to crumble… Yidhra slowly digs her shoulder and neck: trying to support his weight to lessen the collapse on the ground. “Shh… Shh, no no darling. You’re going to hurt yourself if you are not careful. Pangea soil is no fun to those who cannot handle the barbs and barnacles and reefs from its time beneath sea. See, easy now.” practically cooing with delight Yidhra strokes her paddle-shaped tentacles over him and stabilize Delta’s head… balance him safely in a way to prevent drowning or pain.
Cautious as ever she allows the mass of writhing tentacles on her face to latch on and bring the chitinous beak close to his cheek. In a gesture almost like a kiss she touches him: scratches just enough to tackle and not to maim. Leaning back she stands over him, painfully aware of his weakness and unconscious.
She contemplates many things while she waits: and practices a genius granted to her from centuries and more of experience. With hollowed vessels made from cracked reef she pools fresh water from the river into a rock shaped like a basin. Soft, in a way, she prepares tedious wild strawberry and clover: piling it nearest him. The fear dissipates and she blinks several times: waiting until her stirs before trying to speak, again.
“My darling boy, you passed out. I was scared you would drown in a flash flood; but, fortune was not so terrible. Please, do listen: after all, it is very important that you and I talk. I was unable to find you before you entered and now? You will be among the hundreds I am trying to save.” a pedagogue of her rational, Yidhra waits and watches: observes with fixated attention.
Yidhra
@[Delta]