Sand is an annoyance in its dry state, a thing of shifting instability and heat that only grows stronger as the sun spreads its light across it, and she despises the way it feels beneath her weight: the way she has to adjust and change, lean with each motion. Still, there is a solution: one presented by Ivar as she watches the glimmer of blue and gold beneath the water’s surface, as she notes the flurry of fins and scale. His form is mutable and she recalls the gnashing teeth and the sumptuous pain that came with the bite, which is why she does not think he is prey when he alters forms. Instead, she can only smile with mischief and cunning gleaming in the bizarre and alien eyes.
She does not bother to wait for permission, rather she moves forward to the wet sand and feels the rush of cold ocean on her ankles and legs. A shudder burdens the whole of her spine and almost instantly the mass of writhing arms and suckers on her neck comes to life: curling this way and that, and even the ones where he tail do as well; but the pair at her shoulder tentatively reach out to him. Almost like the soft caress of a lover, a single paddle shaped tendrils seeks to brush along his neck: stopping on his chest.
Pulsating and moving the tendrils nearest her mouth sag but do not muffle her voice, rather she speaks eloquently and with ease. “That was an unfortunate shape,” she purrs. “But it is gone now.” simplified and without elaboration she clatters the chitinous beak beneath the mass and allows a watery rattle of laughter to find its way into her words. “My… power is restored to a degree, my shape returning. Not completely; but enough. Carnage, the God-Mage and his Pangea… this contagion: it has worked to my benefit.” she shrugs, truth and simple fact.
Drawing the appendage back from him she considers his offer, thinks and muses over what he asks of her in such a straightforward way. Those teal eyes narrow, the barbell shapes irises stretching and thinning- the flecks of orange becoming more predominant. She would never admit how tempting it was, how eagerly she wished to dive into the black and cold water: how quickly she’d have sought to return to the simplicity of hunting and creeping along the waters; but her mind is scored and soured as she recalls the voice of the God-Mage and the pain she endured, the claim she sought to stake.
“I am already infected,” she states calmly. “Rhonen… I struck the second blow, and we were among the first to become ridden with it.” parting the tendrils near her face the beak is exposed and with it, bloody spittle that drips down the underside of the tendrils and along her throat. Her porous and hairless skin shudders and she drops the appendages again to cover the beak. “I’ve heard that it can be treated; taken away with magic… but that does mean there is cure. Pangea holds the secret to that cure, I’m sure of it.” she shrugs and for a moment Yidhra questions if he will care, if he will understand.
Her eyes blink, long and slow.
“I need to find that cure... “ she stops, hesitating and growing silent suddenly. Her mind, however, parses what she wants to say and in her head she can hear her own voice: ‘because this is my fault, this is our fault- all of us… and I cannot let what happened to the element happen again’
Yidhra