Interlude: Oeara

He watched the great-clawed shrimp as it dug through the glittering dirt, eating grasses from the roots up. A dark, slender form was stalking up from behind, and the shrimp continued to eat, slow, almost unaware of the fanged danger lurking behind. Then the tiny sand kitten leapt asudden, claws out to utterly gore the shrimp. It simply dodged. The shrimp moved quicker then you might expect, leaping right into the face of the kitten, raking it deep with claws, drawing lines of blood. Yowling, the cat died. The giant shrimp leapt off its failed predator, and returned to grazing upon the grass. He swooped down, then. A raven cloaked in black feathers, it stood above the gore and eyed with four pupils the medusae, one by one by one, daring them to contest its meal. None did. With a low crooned note, the raven began to feast on the corpse. "That's the third raven I've seen today. Pests. Where in the sun are they coming from?" Oeara turned lazy eyestalks to observe the speaker. A wide, striated jelly, colored a translucent purplish hue. She treaded lightly in the air. She only considered his words once before he spoke. You should always consider words at least once. She said, "It lends at least a little credence to the suspect's claims. Ravens are the servants of death. It is known." "You think he's telling the truth?" "I think we'll find out." She --- Hua --- spun in the air once. Letting a breath audibly escape her, she said, "You have to be expecting something when we find this secret shrine or temple or whatever." She considered the boredom of answering straight. Squeezing herself slightly, she answered, "Do I have to expect something?" "You can't not. Why don't you want to answer?" Another squeeze. "What haven't I answered?" "I'm not going to spell it out." Oeara felt her bell swelling a bit at that. "I win." "So you do." The sharp, sullen note in that only swelled her bell further. Oeara turned a few eyestalks up at the indication of the sun behind her sunshield. Others looked out at the expanse of the the wild canyons. "Let's go. I want time enough to rest when this nonsense is over." Oeara was who had stopped them, and at her unrooting and floating off, the other two medusa began to follow. The head guard ran just a trickle of magic down her tress to her godstinger, and a lance of bright blue stabbed through the shrimp and killed it instantly. The bird fluttered away a space, staring, impressed. Oeara swore it called her name as they floated away. - - - "I can't believe none of you thought to ask for directions." "We should be able to find the shrine by following the scent of rot." "This is such an obvious delaying tactic. He wanted to get us off his trail. I can't believe you fell for it." Four more eyestalks swiveled to regard Hua. Oeara's response: "And he could only distract us by revealing knowledge he did not want us to have. You had to have caught that too. Why would he want us to know of the death shrine?" "I don't like it." "Trust my judgment. And trust our partners to keep Ruwen under restraint." She sung something unintelligible. Oeara could guess the sentiment which didn't bare mention. Who ever rooted out the death shrine would be rewarded. Would be remembered. Get their own mural in the sun spire. Nothing else, for the one who finally secured the rule of Aveltane under the sun. Even internally, where only she herself would hear, Oeara could not kid herself and say that it would only prudence which launched her after the shrine so quickly. Nevertheless, they followed after the scent of rot. The raven had been a premonition of sorts --- the farther they went into the wild canyons, the more black forms they spied high in the sky, or milling in the grass, or staring inscrutably, almost medusa-ishly off canyontops. Oeara imagined even Hua was coming to believe there was something here after all. Aside from all the ravines centuries-carved into the countryside, the wild canyons were largely a flat affair. One saw far to the horizon, with hardly a hill or butte to block the view. At first, it was just another black form to them. As it came closer, the size became apparent, and the shape, and it was decided that round form floating closer could not be any species of raven. Hua activated her gift, and she was simply a distortion in the air. Oeara and Waia --- the unspeaking green medusa --- had magic barely restrained at the mouths of their tresses. Both of them had slings in one tentacle and a spear in the other. Oeara called out wordless and melodic, pitched loud and low in a way that would carry. The black form called a friendly reply in response, before angling themselves for speed. Diagonally they shot across the country, crossing vast canyons in breaths. This close, they could see the medusa wielded no sunshield, only a cloak drawn tight across their bell. Sown into that cloak was the emblem of the vast desert reef, and a name: Maahi. They were a tall, slender medusa, with a loop bulging about their bell, and black tresses and tentacles that came below the cloak. "State your purpose." A swelling beneath the cloak. "Does any medusa have a purpose?" Oeara lifted a tress, took aim, and fired. A lance of blue bulleted close enough to rip the first layer of their cloak. "Slow down. You do not want an enemy in me." "Then cease antagonizing, and answer the question. What are you doing in the wild canyons? You tend close to the lesser canyon reef and we are the guard." "I travel. A medusa comfortable in no place, seeking forevermore a land which she may not find --- is that so foreign a concept? What dread has you so swiftly at my throat?" "You have no need to know." "Oh, so it's entirely fine to play with my questions, is it? How about I decide I do intend to know, and to have you tell me." They adjusted the loop around their bell. "We seek a certain shrine rumored to lie in these canyons." Maahi chuckled. "You mean the death shrine?" A pause, then Oeara lifted a tress aimed at Maahi, wordless. She didn't fire. "It seems that we have a mutual desire for answers, then. You start." There was a raven, up on a coral tree, watching with one eye. Beak bloody, it was familiar. "Well?" Oeara considered. Then, "Waia, did Llaree's vision include a traveler? Anything close?" "The master of the serpent," he replied. She never got used to his enunciated, sine wave melodies. "They remember that phrase. Who blazes like the earth and seeks the key. Something like that." Oeara lifted another tress, then she poised to shield her heart. In case the traveller had some missile, or projectile gift. In case Oeara had reflexes quick enough to make a difference. She considered it. "We simply intend to investigate the shrine. We have accounts that suggest that the death god may be planning something against our temple of the sun. We are precautious." Oeara spun around. "Now you go." "I am on a pilgrimage. I visited the death shrine, and will visit your sun spire next." Half of the deep blue jelly's eyestalks pointed toward the green jelly, the other half toward the empty space on the other side of the cloaked medusa. The words were sharp, quick. More a first move in a battle, than the request they seemed. They were: "Come with us." "I will not." They adjusted the loop around them once more. Oeara had rope in her bag. A few eyestalks glanced to Waia again. Above, the raven still watched. "So be it." Three things happened at once, but are properly understood in sequence. The traveler recoiled back, out of line with the coordinator's tresses, anticipating the missile she'd fire. Magic flooded through Waia's tresses, and the traveler reappearance on the other side of Oeara. Oeara, instead of firing immediately, adjusted her aim, knowing exactly where Waia would teleport the cloaked medusa. It didn't hit anything vital. Missed the heart, missed the primary blood tubes, but of course: her aim was true, considered. It did, however, spear one of the traveller's magic glands. A precaution. (Always, it's the small things that knock you off balance.) The sudden trauma choked off the flow of magic down their tresses, and the travelers was falling to the ground. And then the bulging loop around their bell moved. It went down, under the cloak, and came out jostling the eyestalks and tentacles the dangling below. A harvai eel. It had deep, brightly saturated eyes, purple like drops of concentrated poison. It's massive jaws yaned open, emitting a low, hitching noise that provoked something primal. And the smell of processed death emitted from that maw. It moved like a sinuous dart, and it was instinct the rocked Oeara out of the way for one second. Just one second, because then her magic choked up, and she couldn't think quick enough to get herself out of this, let alone far enough ahead to deal with the murderous, unholy worm. Then the eel wasn't there anymore. She saw it surprised and -- for now --- motionless, far away, a canyon between the jellies and the floating land eel. Unfortunately, it was a distraction. There was an black aura forming around the Maahi --- their gift --- and as they moved (faster than even the eel) it was as if they left afterimages. A knife was held tight in their grasping tentacles, and sinking into Waia before stopping, barely a tress's width before reaching the heart. A hostage. "I will reiterate. You do no want an enemy of me." "Now," was all Oeara said. Hua regained visibility with a spear in her tentacle and rushing toward the traveller. Then she hesitated, eyestalks glancing to Oeara for indication. Blackness crackled as it flew down the traveler's tresses, and engulfed Hua, and then a singular sound filled the canyon for a moment. Waia was fresh to the force. It was this day that he learned the cacophonous, shattering timbre of a medusa in agony. A breath passed, and the red orbs at the end of the hilts of the tra