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Kethel has no first hint that something is wrong. First there is nothing, then every sense comes alive at once, sending frantic alarms from all directions. Everything smells wrong, no home, no family, no Reaches wrapped around a hollow tree. Instead it smells of dust and cold and unwashed groundling bodies (and, somewhere in the shameful depths of its early memories, of food), of the inside of something made of dead trees and old stone. Bad.
Worse. It's wearing its groundling form, which it rarely does to sleep. Even the rest of its Flight finds that habit a bit too much, and Kethel will take to other habits if someone needs to be soothed by not having a small mountain of bony plates and big teeth snoring nearby, but it's purpose is defense and reconaissance, and both are hard to do if it gets jumped in its sleep. The habit isn't comfortable, but Kethel hardly knows what to make of comfort when it's offered, and it learned to rest with wings when all kethel learn--when claws and armor are the best way not to be dinner for a much bigger sibling some hungry night.
It tries to open its eyes and to shift with the same urgency and in the same moment, the second breath it takes in this wrong place. The first part works, but when it reaches for its other self, nothing happens. Nothing external. It feels a bit like something cold reached into its gut and tugged, but it remains smooth skinned and fragile, and that's the important bit.
Not much rattles Kethel, but this is horrifying. With no knowledge of an herbal simple that could stop a shift (and that would just kill it anyway, in that particular case), all it can imagine is external control. It doesn't know enough of queens, but it knows all about Rulers and Progenitors riding your thoughts and stealing your mind, and before it can gather itself, it lets slip a soft, pitchy hiss, a surprisingly small sound from a body that, even in groundling form, takes up a lot of space. To Raksuran ears, it's very close to the kind of noise a distressed fledgling would make. Kethel doesn't consider itself to have had anything much like a childhood, which makes it easier to deny its own (lack of) age, but sometimes things slip.
Just for a moment. Then it's back at work. The room (room is the right word) is small and closed in on four sides, lined with flaky metal bars above and on one wall. There's nothing like open air beyond the bars, just the cool, stale, scent-laden mess it caught on first waking. Now that it knows to listen, it can hear the owners of those scents, some close enough that they must be on the other side of a solid wall, some distant indeed. They aren't speaking, for the most part. Rustling, breathing, a bit of groaning. Nothing healthy. The larger space this barred room is part of (it doesn't know "cell") must be huge, if enclosed. It's dim, with light from flickering balls of glowing yellow spaced thinly about. There's one in the room with it, but it's a faint light indeed, not enough to illuminate the corners of even so small a space.
A space that isn't empty. Kethel growls faintly, back to its customary deep and threatening, at its own foolishness, though it could have sworm it was alone, that it would have noticed a second person, that somehow the other body in the room appeared while it was squinting up to try and spot a ceiling beyond the bars above. That's stupid. No excuses. It prepares to have to remind itself several times that people are not food, but then picks the scent that belongs to the shadowy form out of the air.
Nope. Not food. "Old consort?"
Worse. It's wearing its groundling form, which it rarely does to sleep. Even the rest of its Flight finds that habit a bit too much, and Kethel will take to other habits if someone needs to be soothed by not having a small mountain of bony plates and big teeth snoring nearby, but it's purpose is defense and reconaissance, and both are hard to do if it gets jumped in its sleep. The habit isn't comfortable, but Kethel hardly knows what to make of comfort when it's offered, and it learned to rest with wings when all kethel learn--when claws and armor are the best way not to be dinner for a much bigger sibling some hungry night.
It tries to open its eyes and to shift with the same urgency and in the same moment, the second breath it takes in this wrong place. The first part works, but when it reaches for its other self, nothing happens. Nothing external. It feels a bit like something cold reached into its gut and tugged, but it remains smooth skinned and fragile, and that's the important bit.
Not much rattles Kethel, but this is horrifying. With no knowledge of an herbal simple that could stop a shift (and that would just kill it anyway, in that particular case), all it can imagine is external control. It doesn't know enough of queens, but it knows all about Rulers and Progenitors riding your thoughts and stealing your mind, and before it can gather itself, it lets slip a soft, pitchy hiss, a surprisingly small sound from a body that, even in groundling form, takes up a lot of space. To Raksuran ears, it's very close to the kind of noise a distressed fledgling would make. Kethel doesn't consider itself to have had anything much like a childhood, which makes it easier to deny its own (lack of) age, but sometimes things slip.
Just for a moment. Then it's back at work. The room (room is the right word) is small and closed in on four sides, lined with flaky metal bars above and on one wall. There's nothing like open air beyond the bars, just the cool, stale, scent-laden mess it caught on first waking. Now that it knows to listen, it can hear the owners of those scents, some close enough that they must be on the other side of a solid wall, some distant indeed. They aren't speaking, for the most part. Rustling, breathing, a bit of groaning. Nothing healthy. The larger space this barred room is part of (it doesn't know "cell") must be huge, if enclosed. It's dim, with light from flickering balls of glowing yellow spaced thinly about. There's one in the room with it, but it's a faint light indeed, not enough to illuminate the corners of even so small a space.
A space that isn't empty. Kethel growls faintly, back to its customary deep and threatening, at its own foolishness, though it could have sworm it was alone, that it would have noticed a second person, that somehow the other body in the room appeared while it was squinting up to try and spot a ceiling beyond the bars above. That's stupid. No excuses. It prepares to have to remind itself several times that people are not food, but then picks the scent that belongs to the shadowy form out of the air.
Nope. Not food. "Old consort?"
