[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/P7Vw9Fz.png[/img][/center]

[i][colour=PaleGoldenrod][b]Report.[/b]
Transit continues. Rapport has been established with Dwarf Cinead. Dwarf Inga is recalcitrant due to the threat to her attachment with Dwarf Cinead.
[b]Do not risk rapport of both for securing one.[/b]
My risks are calculated. I have induced fatigue in Dwarf Inga until better opportunities present themselves.
[b]You have not had this problem before.[/b]
Inconsequential. The corruption has decreased my performance. My condition is still nominal for this task.
[b]Will you complete your mission?[/b]
Yes.
[b]You will be recovered should you fail or succeed.[/b]
...
[b]Acknowledge.[/b]
Understood.[/colour][/i]

[hr]
"Wake up, lazy-bones! We have to gather more supplies today."

Mira's voice brought Cinead out of his morning dreams. Her hand gently shook his shoulder. He turned in his bedding and open his eyes. Even her silhouette above him against the blue morning sky was enough to make him smile.

Mira wore that soft smile she usually did but she carried an urging in her eyes. "We didn't find enough food yesterday. If we can get a lucky catch or find a fruit tree that hasn't been eaten up, we can spend the rest of the day covering more ground." She tilted her head. "Cinead? Are you okay?"

"Yes." Cinead rubbed the sleep from his face. "I just...last night there was..."

Mira stood up from her kneeling position and walked to pick up the hunting spear she had fashioned yesterday. 

Cinead tried to find a way to describe that tall, white, armoured ghost he saw on the lake. Its dance. The music. The strange conversation, if it could even be called that.

"What was there?" Mira looked over her shoulder.

"A dream," Cinead finally said. "It didn't make any sense. It had to be a dream." He sat up with some strain in his voice. "It must have bothered me in my sleep. Oh?"

Cinead realised why his legs were numb; Inga had laid her neck across on them and she was fast asleep herself. Cinead ran a hand over her furred head and neck. Inga's bandages still held fast over her wing, large splint and all.

"I suppose we'll be letting her sit this one out again," Cinead said almost as a question.

Mira turned and nodded. "We shouldn't risk her wing getting inflamed. Even if she is healing as fast as you are, she is still looking weak, I'm afraid."

Cinead splayed both his hands on Inga's neck and gently slid his legs free from under her.

"Very well," Cinead said, slowly standing up so as not to trip over his pinched nerves. "We'll try to be quick, then. Inga can take care of herself here at camp." He gave Mira another smile.

Mira smiled back. She clasped her hands and gave Inga a gentle look. "Your sister might be rather headstrong, Cinead, but...she's almost cute. Lying there like that."

"I am sorry if she gives you any trouble. She can be rash at times, but she's my sister. We've always leant on each other."

"I understand," Mira said with a hint of indignance. "I have a twin, too, remember?"

"That is fair." Cinead's smile widened with amusement. "More often than not, Inga's the one pulling me back when I'm rushing ahead. That's at least one upside to her...personality."

Mira quirked an ear. "She doesn't strike me as one to be cautious. Though if your rabbit chasing skills are any indication, maybe she would be a better hunter than you." She grinned.

Cinead sharply breathed out with embarrassment. "Easy now. I have had practice since then." He walked across the camp, patting Mira on her upper arm on the way. "Come, let's hunt."

They walked, side by side.

After a slow breath in, Cinead gave Mira a sideways look. "You know, I'm not sure you ever shared what made you want to become a ranger. I grew up surrounded by warrior dwarves who pined for infantry or officership. What made you different?"

Mira didn't look up from where she intended to put her feet. "Probably my father. He had my life planned for me, you could say. I never had a choice." She shrugged. "I was talented for the role, sure. You could even say I was made for it. I may as well have been, with all the early training I had. My father still forwards orders to me. He ranks high. My brother and I have always moved around a lot at his behest, even growing up."

She let out a single laugh in her reminiscing. Cinead smiled again, even if it was a small laugh she made.

"It was lonely," she continued. "I never met many of my kind. And when I did, they were...very different to me. It made me wonder who I was sometimes. Whether I fit into my...well, my skin."

Cinead looked ahead, chewing on the inside of his cheek in thought. He was sad for Mira. Perhaps sharing details of his more social upbringing in Dundee over the last few nights may have been insensitive.

"Do you..." Cinead brought the right words together, facing Mira again. "Did you ever wish you could be something else? Something closer to Dundee?"

Mira sighed and closed her eyes. "No. I mean...not near Dundee. I was never very attached there. But I always felt like there was some other potential I had. Somewhere else, maybe. Something I would rather be doing." She looked up and showed a hand. "But every time I try to nail it down, it eludes me. I haven't gotten any closer to knowing. Except...maybe..."

As Mira trailed off, Cinead's eyes lingered on her. He tried to discern her thoughts. Upon reaching a mental blank, trying to cheer her up sounded easier.

"Well..." Cinead lifted his hands behind his head and sucked in the fresh morning air. "I can't fathom what it would be. But, if all the other rangers are different, I'm glad you're the one I ended up with." He looked at the ground and up ahead again. "You know...you could come with me. Back to Dundee. You don't have to spend your life out here if there is something else pulling you."

Mira cast her eyes down again with a smile, clearly abashed. She shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I don't think there is anything for me there. Here is where I am in my element. At least, it's what I know."

"Are you sure? I could tell you the things that have changed since you left. There have been a great many things."

[hr]
[i][colour=PaleGoldenrod]...
[b]Situation.[/b]
Divine senses have been malfunctioning for an indeterminate length of time. Ninety-five percent confidence on incorrect functionality over the last sixteen hours, deviating five hours.
[b]Do you require reinforcement?[/b]
No.
[b]Continue as planned.[/b]
...
[b]Speak.[/b]
I have had locked characters in me for some time, Majus. I cannot decipher them. Now they are causing the corruption to spread. Are some of our capabilities hidden?
[b]...Corruption has resulted in false-positive character recognition in your lexicon. Designed hidden capabilities are nonexistent.[/b]
...Understood.[/colour][/i]

[hr]
Mira was talented enough that she could converse while looking for signs of game or edible flora. Cinead told more about the citadel that was his home in the frigid south. Mira recognised a few details but Cinead otherwise felt nice to give some knowledge back. Cinead could not rightly tell how long she had been away from Dundee with the various things she knew and didn't know.

In the end, Cinead failed to convince her to return with him. She was stuck out here by other duties anyway, or so she said. Moreover, they failed as a pair to determine what other life Mira might have wanted to lead in her heart of hearts. Unfortunately, Cinead's suggestions were not comprehensive or deep.

In the process, Mira revealed more about herself. She proved true to her previous statements on loneliness: She had no memories of her mother, no old friends that were not either dead or somewhere unknown, little in the way of pastimes that weren't purely practical, and -- after a notable pause -- no one she had loved outside of her family.

And yet, she continued to impress Cinead about her knowledge of the world. And again, that smile and that laugh made Cinead almost forget the unsettling mystery that still surrounded her.

At any rate, the pair had little luck finding food in the first hour. They came across a lavish blackberry bush that filled a makeshift sack made from Cinead's shirt, but the tasty treats would not settle them for more than a day or two. They needed to hunt.

In their efforts to find tracks, Cinead expressed more interest in the gods. Mira had yet more tales to give.

"...And hain further north," Mira explained. "Near to the Valley of Peace, where Niciel is, claim that the paradise their kind were cast from by Toun was the valley itself." Mira climbed up onto a large fallen tree. The forest was tall here, darkening the day in deep green. "It would make sense. The Valley of Peace has no violence within. Niciel -- or Nissel, as some of the hain call her -- makes things pure. That's what she is. Purity and kindness, encapsulated in a goddess. She wouldn't allow the hain to be destroyed in her territory, or so you should think."

She squatted on the fallen tree and offered a hand for Cinead. He took it and hoisted himself up. Climbing as she had was difficult with the sack of berries in one hand.

"This Toun..." Cinead reflected. "I wonder how the rovaick find themselves worshipping him if he's so...bellicose."

"There are worse gods," Mira said, walking up the tree with a too-easy balance and stopping to look back. "Some say the worst trait of the gods is their capriciousness. Vestec, Astarte, Jvan, they have done all sorts of strange things for no consistent reason." She leapt to the ground ahead with a thud in the leaves. "At least you can depend on Toun to keep promises. That is a virtue of his..."

Cinead followed and leapt down behind Mira. She squinted at the ground ahead.

"What is it-?"

"Sh!" Mira held up a hand.

Cinead held his breath as Mira did.

He heard it. A lumbering. Something crushing dead leaves. And a click. A click. Clicking in a constant time.

It stopped.

Cinead tilted his head.

A sound like a dozen empty barrels tumbling from a roaring monster's mouth came from everywhere at once. He bent his knees and looked about.

Mira spun, intensely focused. She threw her spear aside, shoved Cinead by the shoulders, and kicked his foot. It caught across his other shin on the way back. He landed heavily on his back before he realised what was going on. Blackberries pattered everywhere where the sack was flicked up and over.

Cinead was winded. Mira looked down at him with a cold sternness. He didn't know how to interpret it. She jumped front-first on top of him.

"Ah! Mira, what are you-?"

"Shut [i]up[/i] if you want to live, Cinead," Mira hissed. "Stay still."

She adjusted until they were completely front-to-front. Even their legs were lined up. Cinead dared not move, especially with Mira looking at him so angrily.

He could still see the forest from his peripheral vision.

The ticking came closer, as did the crunching. Then a shadow leant over the fallen tree next to them. A vast, round, grey shadow, lined with soil and some dirtied, weathered white stone.

It clicked. It clicked.

One huge hand laid its knuckles on the forest floor to the right, beside Cinead's head. It was made up of more weathered white stone, stained with leaves and dirt.

One more huge, stony, white hand pressed down to Cinead's left. The first walked on, leaving a glistening red puddle of squashed blackberries. Then there was another hand. The shape climbed down from the trunk. Cinead counted six massive arms holding the stony mass above their heads.

It halted its lumbering gait over them.

It clicked. It clicked.

Cinead strained his eyeballs to see the movement near the strangler fig nearby. An egg -- a huge egg wrought from white stone -- hovered down, attached to a white neck made from segments like vertebrae. The egg had a pair of gaunt arms reaching from its front end like alien whiskers, wriggling, feeling.

It clicked. It clicked.

The egg floated into an opening in the strangler fig's hollow chamber of roots.

Cinead almost jolted -- the braying of a young deer sounded. The egg floated back out of the fig roots. Sure enough, in its strange, spindly arms was a struggling deer faun, still with white spots on its fur. The egg floated near the forest floor and let the faun roll free from its nurturing grip.

The faun bounded away in a panic.

It clicked. It clicked. That giant stony white egg.

The egg floated up out of sight over the massive grey shape above them.

Finally, the huge arms towering around them sauntered. The mass lumbered forward. Cinead saw it leave the angle of his vision, but Mira remained pressed against him. Her stern look had only changed with her eyes looking to one side, listening out for the clicks and the lumbering footsteps -- or handsteps, Cinead supposed.

The clicks grew softer.

Cinead could hardly hear them before too long. He heard Mira breathing through her nose.

The other sounds of the forest returned to Cinead's fearful hyperawareness. Birdsong, mostly. And his racing heartbeats. He breathed in without making a sound and met Mira's eyes.

She was still looking aside.

Cinead realised their closeness long before Mira was satisfied to exhale fully. Her eyes closed and she slumped her head onto his shoulder, relieved.

Mira's fur was soft against Cinead's cheek. He stared up at the canopy, still calming himself. "Was that a white giant?" he asked.

"It was. It must have detected that faun in trouble and deviated from its path. Anything not made by Toun or Slough or some semblance of them are attacked by them."

"I thought they were just myths," Cinead murmured. "Murderous ancient beasts hidden in ice or snows. I can see why they would be camouflaged closer to Dundee."

"They are all over the world where they can walk unimpeded."

"I see," Cinead whispered. "Are you okay?"

Mira nodded.

Neither of them motioned to stand up. Cinead could feel Mira's heartbeat now. Or his. He could not tell anymore.

Cinead swallowed. "We should..." he began.

"Right..."

Mira slowly stood up and dusted herself off. Cinead followed suit. They both avoided eye contact.

Cinead cleared his throat. In a tone which gave levity enough to distract from the awkwardness, he dipped one corner of his head and spoke confidently. "If that was a white giant, I think I think I have just a few more questions." He tried to chuckle. 

Mira brought her arms up and unbuttoned her uniform tunic in a rush.

Cinead's face dropped. "Mira? Wait, hold on, what?!" Cinead raised his hands.

Cinead's fears were unfounded. Mira only undid the first few buttons before pulling one side open. She revealed only the fur just under her right collarbone. Unlike the rest of the silky pattern on her, a patch previously hidden was marked by three bright red symbols intertwined, dyed into the fur perfectly.

"This is called the Oath of Sularn," Mira explained flatly. "It's a rovaick trick to hide from white giants. That's why it didn't see me. And it couldn't see you behind me."

Something about the symbols had an innate meaning to Cinead. Though, before he could decipher it, Mira hid the mark behind her tunic.

"That's the short version," Mira said as she looked down to redo her buttons. "I'm sure you grew up with myths about the white giants stalking the tundra outside Dundee. There are other details, but we should keep hunting."

"Okay."

"Come, we've wasted enough time."

[hr]
[i][colour=PaleGoldenrod]...
[b]Situation.[/b]
My disguise is weakening.
[b]Do you require reinforcement?[/b]
No.
[b]Continue as planned.[/b]
...
[b]Speak.[/b]
The locked characters. Their key comes in many parts. It was built for a purpose.
[b]The locked characters are corruption.[/b]
The dance is only one component of the key. It mirrors behaviours observed in mortals.
[b]Cease pursuing the corruption.[/b]
...
[b]Pursuing the corruption will hasten your decay.[/b]
...Understood.[/colour][/i]

[hr]
Mira and Cinead had not exchanged more than a few words since the white giant. Cinead tried, Mira brushed him off. He got the message before long.

The silver lining to the awkwardness was that they could focus without endlessly talking. They soon encountered the trail of a doe. Cinead drove Mira's spear through the creature with a well-aimed hurl soon after they spotted it. They did not even have to chase it for very long before it collapsed.

The power of his arm behind the spear gave Cinead pause when he knelt by the deer's corpse. He had almost forgotten this strength he had been bestowed. Mira knew much, but to questions on Cinead's physical abilities, she only shook her head.

Without knowing the weight of woodland creatures, Cinead was less perturbed that he was able to carry the carcass over his shoulders without strain.

They ate well that night. Having something substantial in their bellies and with Inga's attempts at conversation, the three were jovial before too long.

Cinead kept trying to catch Mira's eyes and was only partially successful. She might have been embarrassed, or perhaps fearful of intimacy, Cinead suspected. The thought of their separation darkened his thoughts as he tried to sleep.

But he had the dream again. Once more, too real to be a dream. Once more, he got up from his bedroll to follow the chains and the music.

It did not lead him to a pond. This time, Cinead spotted it in a tree, looking down at him.

"You again," he said. He braced to dodge any chains this time. "You didn't answer my last question last night. What are you?"

A chain clinked in a rhythm as if unravelling. Descending slowly from the tree on one taut white chain was the dancing ghost, garbed in white plates like armour. It settled its feet on the ground and the chain slithered back into its forearm.

Cinead looked up at its blank white visor. The ghost was as tall as he remembered.

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"I am the lesser twin Minus."[/i][/colour]

It was not a name Cinead recognised.

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Toun made me. Now I watch you."[/i][/colour]

The back of Cinead's neck prickled. "Toun? The god? Why?"

Minus tilted its head to one side like a curious dog. The seemly solid plates joining its neck to its shoulders flexed to the movement like pearly skin. It stepped its feet together and shrank slowly and without a sound, slowing to a stop just under Cinead's stature.

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"You prefer this height, do you not?"[/i][/colour]

Cinead lowered his brow. "...How did you do that?"

Minus half-turned and strode. The chains swung from her loosely closed fists. 

Cinead stepped broadly to catch up. "Wait a moment, where are you going?" He caught Minus by the shoulder. It felt cold like stone.

Minus stopped and spun to face him. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Why do you yearn? Do you feel trapped?"[/i][/colour]

From confusion to confusion. Cinead blinked. "What do you mean?"

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Recall my dance, Cinead. You saw yearning. Sadness from a struggle. What does that mean?"[/i][/colour]

Cinead stepped back and looked down. That bright red symbol on Minus' chest was all too clear now. It must have been a symbol that marked Minus as Toun's. He shook off the distraction and drew his thoughts to the question. "It depends on what you're yearning for."

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Understood."[/i][/colour] Minus tilted its helmeted head to one side again. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"You are yearning. You must be."[/i][/colour]

Cinead avoided Minus' nonexistent eyes. It really had been watching him.

Minus added a small, conspiratorial inflexion in its smooth voice. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"How much are you yearning?"[/i][/colour]

"I do not know how one would measure it." Cinead shrugged. "It is a strong yearning."

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Would you still yearn if you knew its fate was to be forever beyond your reach?"[/i][/colour]

Cinead narrowed an eye at Minus. "What do you mean?"

Minus angled its head slightly away. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"My brother Majus will retrieve me soon. When the corruption takes over. That means I can be a subject to help you answer."[/i][/colour] It returned to its questioning tone. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"If I was the subject of your yearning, the one you refer to, and you knew that I would be taken away to have my mind emptied, would you still yearn for me?"[/i][/colour]

"Well..." Cinead breathed out of his nose, clenching his jaw. If Mira was doomed to forget him, to be taken beyond his reach. "I would still yearn." He confidently nodded. "Why do you want to know?"

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"How could you still yearn? There is nothing that you could do."[/i][/colour]

"I would do anything," Cinead responded without hesitation. "There is always a way."

Minus paused, staring blankly.

"What about you? What would you do if your yearning was strong enough...Minus?" He remembered its name.

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"I would..."[/i][/colour] Minus' shoulders lifted in a short spasm. It settled like a wave. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"...be in pain."[/i][/colour]

Cinead craned his head at Minus' discomfort. He could not tell if Minus was about to purge 'distilled corruption' again.

Minus held its head forward. If it had eyes, Cinead knew they would be pleading by the way it spoke. [colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"Let your yearning go when you reach the rovaick, Cinead. You know you cannot hold onto it. Consider forging a happy memory. Something special. And then move on."[/i][/colour]

Bowing his head, Cinead knew Minus was right. His face darkened. Mira did say she would not come with him. She would have other orders, he knew. What Minus suggested was the most the creature had ever made sense.

"I'll take your advice. Thank you."

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"If we meet again, I will not know who you are, Cinead."[/i][/colour]

Cinead smiled and shook his head. "I hardly know anything about you anyway, Minus."

[colour=PaleGoldenrod][i]"You know enough. You know more truth than I risk with anyone else. Goodbye."[/i][/colour]

Before Cinead could reach out to grab Minus again, a chain pulled taut in a tree branch and pulled it away by the arm, out of sight. Nothing was left in evidence but slowly falling leaves.

Cinead thought he should be confused. He only felt sombre as he crept back to camp.

He took one last look at Mira sleeping soundly in her bedroll. He would have to think of something before long; they would reach the rovaick soon.

[hider=The sheer amount of in-progress rewrites in this arc is causing me physical pain.]
This one's a tad lengthier than I've permitted before on this arc. I had to split the second half off into a post of its own that I'll start working on soon.

Anywhooo...

Minus' condition is clearly deteriorating. It is going on about some locked away set of Tounic characters inside of her that need to be unlocked by a key of some sorts.

Majus calls Minus a conspiracy theorist and tells it to stop because it's causing more corruption. Majus also asserts that the locked characters themselves are from corruption.

Back to the gang travelling to the rovaick. While Inga remains resting with a broken wing, Cinead and Mira go hunting again. They chat about various things, developing characters and such. Turns out that Mira was given a relatively lonely upbringing under the tuition of her father, who directed her to the life of a ranger. She finds rangers other than herself strange and unrelatable.

*cough*rangersrefertootheravatars*cough*

Cinead offers to take Mira to Citadel Dundee again. She claims there's nothing for her there. A conversation about the goings-on in Dundee (from what Cinead knows) is sparked and they drift off the tension between them.

Mira also knows a lot about the gods for some reason, teaching Cinead about them while they search.

Their hunting is interrupted by a white giant. Mira hides Cinead behind her body to fool it. The white giant saves a cute animal and lumbers off. Mira and Cinead soon realise that they are in SCANDALOUS BODILY CONTACT and they become awkward for a while afterwards.

Mira shows off her Oath of Sularn (which is faked for the sake of a quick avoidance of the detail that she's technically a Tounic creature in the first place). She tersely explains that's why the giant didn't mind them. Awkwardness continues.

They catch a deer, share it around, and Inga helps them forget the awkwardness before they retire for the night.

Minus reports back to Majus again with even stranger claims. Apparently, the dance she's been trying to work out all this time is a component of the key to the locked stuff! Through some deduction, Minus has found out that the components that make up the key are reflected in the experiences of mortals somehow.

Majus tells her to stop encouraging the corruption. Again.

Skipping forward, Cinead has awakened in the middle of the night again and has another meeting with Minus.

Minus is a bit less cryptic and detached this time. It reveals its name and that Toun is its creator. Minus also gets down from its tree, shrinks down to Cinead's size, and approaches him face-to-helmet.

Cinead tries to reveal more information but Minus deflects his questions into a conversation about the nature of yearning. It appears that Minus is trying to expand upon Cinead's interpretation of its dance above the lake in the last post.

Cinead answers honestly. He bases his answers on his growing yearning for Mira.

It's left unclear whether Cinead has got the fuckin' hint about Mira's identity.

In a display of apparent sympathy, Minus implores Cinead to prepare to let his yearning (and by implication, Mira) go. It suggests that he make a happy memory for them to hold onto before they inevitably go their separate ways. (In Minus' case, to the direction of Toun's memory hole).

Cinead understands the sentiment. He has been anticipating his separation from Mira with no lack of sadness.

Minus mentions that it will not have memories of Cinead if they should meet again and closes the conversation.

Funnily enough, Minus does not choke Cinead out this time. He goes back to the camp peacefully with plenty to think about.

Behind the scenes, Muttonhawk desperately hopes that he has done this arc right so far because BY THE GODS was it difficult to work it correctly so far. Please feel free to berate him for making characters that may seem a bit bland at face value, should it be bothering you, my dearest Divinusians.
[/hider]