A Soul to Take

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[107] Nymaya: ...a Soul to Take
Sat Oct 30 21:31:01 2010
To: New_Thalos Reklah Dar'shin Ursah Keylan Jadess ( Cayenna Necrucifer RP Imm )
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sound of the rain should have been soothing.

It pattered softly against the window pane and drummed gently upon the roof top of the Kayen manor. The sky was gray and darkening, the clouds a cold roiling mass while the northern wind gusted demandingly, flinging the fallen fiery red and orange leaves of the maple outside the bedroom window. The tree itself was mostly barren around its upper branches but the lower were still holding strong, unwilling to give up entirely to the oncoming winter.

She watched the blustery weather from the relative comfort of the edge of the bed, a deep gray robe wrapped tightly about her slender form, feeling anything but soothed or comforted. Her thoughts still wandering the encounter she had had only hours ago.

'You should not have summoned me here' The rebuke had been light but saddened, as was the compassionate, pitying gaze.

She hadn't cared for either, though she remembered the elf with some fondness. The shaman had seen to the determining of her past three pregnancies and all three had been exactly as she had claimed they would be. She had confidence in the elf to either set her at ease or deepen her dread. Hope was a small grain for the former.

She shifted with the discomfort of her memory, a bare few hours past, only then becoming aware of the cold invading her desert warmed flesh. In the wake of goosebumps traversing her arms though, she slid from the edge of the bed to move closer to the fireplace and its crackling warmth. She needn't have though for even as she lifted a hand to grasp the mantle, to the right of the onyx statuette gazing out at the room through a pair of crimson jeweled eyes, the stone at her throat pulsed and warmth flooded her.

'Tell me what you want of me, enigma. Please. Is it a child?'

She couldn't contain a shiver and her hand gripped the mantle tightly. Her exhale was soft, not entirely steady, as she tentatively explored the words of the demon, her gaze lifting to look upon the statuette.

...A child? And its familiar laughter sounded again. ...No...Your child...

The tingle of magic had followed the gentle, if somewhat callused, touch of the shaman as the elf's hands hovered over Nymaya's lower abdomen, each movement punctuated by the hollow clack of the woman's bone bracelets. It was familiar, Nymaya had witnessed it before, but it was not comforting.

She watched though. In quiet anticipation - with a sense of dread - that solidified when the shaman's hands stopped and cupped first against the right side of her abdomen and then the left - just as she had correctly predicted for the last three children Nymaya had carried.

The demon - Uvall - hadn't been lying to her.

...you carry two, surely one is not much to ask...

Another shudder, followed by a strong wave of nausea, gripped her but she fought both back as she lowered her head of silver hair and gripped the mantle until her knuckles whitened. She'd paid the shaman even though the woman had left the sum and instead asked only that Nymaya seek the graces of Zandreya. She had answered with a shake of her head and dismissed the strangely garbed wild elf.

The price of her debt had been settled. Too many lives were at stake and she hadn't had the luxury of time. The only comfort to be had now was in knowing it was a creature of her Lord - and that it hadn't slated the child for death.

'By Your will, Necrucifer' She whispered to the ground before lifting her gaze again to look upon the statuette, and allowed the silence to settle.