Something thrummed in her ears. It was out of time with the beating of her own heart, filling what little silence lingered between the ba-bump-bump-bump in her chest and click-click-click of her heels. The air was humming, almost, even minutes after Rrevalk had gone-- bristling and staticky with nothing but pure, unadulterated Chaos. Though she could withstand it better than most, the Valkhand still wanted to be sick. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry.
His little visit had sent something over the edge for Aethril. She wanted blood on her hands. She wanted to feel the crunching of bones underneath her feet; she wanted to set little wooden villages up into flames and hunt down whoever tried to escape the smoke. Though these urges weren't uncommon for the corrupted, it was exceedingly rare that Aethril felt them arise so harshly in her gut.
The Palace, even its pristine hallways, were frustrating to look at. Too neat-- too tidy. It should have been splattered with blood and oil.
When the Hand finally stopped pacing through the Palace she had arrived in the library; wherein said frustration, fury, grief came to a paramount. Too organized. Too clean. Too warm, too white, too--
Her lips pulled back and she screamed-- she screamed and she screamed and she screamed until her throat was raw-- until the hard bellowing had turned into little more than a hoarse breath, but it had done nothing to alleviate the feeling in her stomach. She pulled her hair; she scratched her arms until they ran dark with violet-black blood; until the pain stung as hard as the tears in her eyes did.
She screamed and Chaos ripped itself through the room; the very pressure dropped until it was difficult for her to even breathe, and as she fell choking to her knees, acrid, black winds ran rampant through the library. Books flew off the shelves; the fire extinguished in a plume of smoke. Papers threatened to tear and rip under the force of the wind and the very walls shook until, suddenly, all at once, it stopped.
Aethril threw up-- a putrid mix of stomach acid and unbridled grief spilling onto the floor, and for a long moment afterwards she heaved. Breathless, face soaked, blood still streaming down her arms.
She hated it here. She hated this fucking nest. She hated being here on her hands and knees, dry-heaving over a now-stained rug and choking on her own deafening sobs. What little creatures she cared for were gone, stowed away in their chrysalises while she had done nothing, stuck in a dysfunctional nest, doing nothing, being forgotten by Lord Dhracia and the Creator.
How long? How long before she would see the surface? How long until she finally died? How much longer would she waste away in this dank, stinking cave surrounded by nothing but monsters and shit and bones?
How long, she grieved as her bloodied limbs curled into herself and her screaming wails finally settled into shaking sobs, until any of this was worth it?
