[center][img]http://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/253784f7-b755-41ef-b248-616664056bb6.png[/img] [b]Birth of the Marquisate Part II: Subjugation[/b][/center] Tauga's boots smashed weeds as they furled and snapped at her form. The Venomweald sensed her from miles away, her presence vast and visible to the flora. They were not fooled by the transparency of her tongues. A god walked here. Tauga felt something coming through her tendrils, swept them aside that it might pass undisturbed. Beyond, she could feel the workings of slaves mashing the pith of trees for their meal, held by nothing but the knowledge that they would be caught if they tried to run. She looked up. Through the goggles of her mask, she could clearly see the vast wings of the Valtanansa beating as they trailed their pod of [url=https://img13.deviantart.net/03eb/i/2010/077/0/7/cloud_grazer_by_davesrightmind.jpg]dirigible cloudwhales[/url] above. They moved like the wings of an angel's marionette, Grotling muscle hooked onto a pair of Vosh limbs, pulling the boneless wings in a manner not unlike that of a certain demigod's ornithopter. Mechanical. Tireless. Somewhere up there, the Grotlings had built their whaleback outposts. Tauga stood still and let the one in the jungle find her. A metal thorn whipped downwards onto the back of her skull. She caught it one-handed. It had fallen into the exact line of a hain's cranial blind spot. Admirable. Tauga had intended to toss back the spearhead, but something about it shook her hand when she tried, so she let it fall. It was pulled back sharply on a long rope. The Grotling emerged. [colour=antiquewhite]"...Where are your wings?"[/colour] The lithe monstrosity drew four knives in four hands and leapt for Tauga, screeching unutterable hells under her crest. Tauga parried with the back of her gloves and leapt five times her body height to smack the Grotling in the skull. [colour=antiquewhite]"Don't,"[/colour] she said. [color=antiquewhite]"Good moves, but."[/color] The Grotling backed off a touch and flicked the rope spear. It coiled like a live thing and Tauga retreated, blurring to avoid its catch. A welt had risen on the warrior's face. Tauga let her tendrils settle back on the Grotling. It backed off, slightly. Adjusted its guard. [i][color=f6989d]She can sense them,[/color][/i] Heartworm reminded. [colour=antiquewhite]"Right."[/colour] She beckoned to the warrior. [colour=antiquewhite]"I'm not gonna get caught out by you. What's your name?"[/colour] [i]"Eggshells get broken here,"[/i] said the Grotling, or something like that, in Grotto. [i]"Make a good slave or a sad corpse."[/i] With two quick motions, Tauga drew her sidearm, a rear-toothed Grotling blade. It cut through a flower as it moved, and she felt her foe tense. She beckoned again. The Grotling laughed. [color=antiquewhite]"I didn't fucking think so."[/color] She pointed the blade at the gap in the trees. [colour=antiquewhite]"Why aren't you with them?"[/colour] [i]"I catch slaves,"[/i] said the Grotling. [colour=antiquewhite]"You're doing shit job of it,"[/colour] said Tauga, and parried half a dozen blows with one hand. [colour=antiquewhite]"You're not an Overseer. Who are you?"[/colour] [i]"Sasha will bring the aberration to heel."[/i] The grammar was such that Tauga was the one being introduced, and Sasha's name was only dropped in passing. Clever. Respectful, in a threatening way. [colour=antiquewhite]"No,"[/colour] said Tauga, and launched a brisk offensive. It was a short skirmish, and a violent one, and at the end of it Tauga sat perched on a branch at head height with four knives on the ground and a rope spear caught dangerously fast on the teeth of her blade. A variety of fresh wounds had opened around Sasha's hands and thighs. She could see a Vosh knitting together the edges of its host body's wounds, draining fat reserves as it moved. She started to see how fascinating the process really was. Sasha raised her fists, bleeding. [i]"You are Jukfonite."[/i] [color=antiquewhite]"Not a monk,"[/color] she said. That was all the word meant in Grotto; they had no concept of Jvan. [colour=antiquewhite]"Think bigger."[/colour] Sasha snarled. [i]"Demon."[/i] [colour=antiquewhite]"Almost,"[/colour] she said. [colour=antiquewhite]"I won't waste your time. Watch."[/colour] Heartworm emerged from her suit by its limbs, took apart her cranium and brain, arranged them in two ways, and repaired her in an instant. Sasha paused. To her, it was bizarre, impressive. To her Vosh, who knew the ways of flesh, could understand the action's true complexity, there was one explanation only. [colour=antiquewhite]"[i]Voshbolo,[/i]"[/colour] said Tauga. Vosh carrier. And the Vosh in question- "Valun eppkel as." [colour=antiquewhite]"No one sent me. I came down because I wanted to."[/colour] Grotlings are not especially partial to using gestures of the head to indicate attention. The lack of eyes accounts for that. Tauga was not yet attuned to the subtler gestures of latter Grotkind, and when her hand rose to point to the ophanim that flew above, she knew not that Sasha was already listening to them. [colour=antiquewhite]"Those aren't the weapons of people who die. They're soul weapons. Mine."[/colour] She flicked her fingers and the colony changed shape, confounding the Valtanansa sent to investigate it and nearly bisecting at least one. She moved them again and they returned to previous orbits. [colour=antiquewhite]"I've seen Tek-"[/colour] Heartworm's limb flicked through her tongue, changing the syllable- [colour=antiquewhite]"Tesnald take the form of a hain. I take after her. Do you know why?"[/colour] Sasha made a facial gesture, a slight lowering of the head. [colour=antiquewhite]"Thought so. Say it."[/colour] "Tesnald te un ghorrinaal." [color=antiquewhite]"And his name is Karn."[/color] Tauga exhaled. The hardest part was over. Yes, Tesnald had a husband. And Tauranga was their son. The lie was told, and in the telling it had become truth; just like Tauga's godhood, her ancestry was created by her myth. The Blowfly lived. [color=antiquewhite]"You have seven gods. I'm the eighth. I'm the Vosh-carrier, the one who tests. I own ten thousand slaves."[/color] She looked up. Heartworm gave her no cues. She recited. She learned. [colour=antiquewhite]"You have seven gods. The Prime is dead. The Writhe never left. My mother was the first to do so. I'm the one who came back."[/colour] She looked down, slightly, to the towering slaver. [color=antiquewhite]"My name is Tauranga, son of Mason. My weapons crush armies."[/color] [i]"...Where are your thorns?"[/i] [color=antiquewhite]"They'll grow in."[/color] The Grotling looked down upon her, the one who had worn the shape of the weak-shelled and beaten her with it, and then slowly took a knee. Tauga nodded. Some words were spoken. [colour=antiquewhite]"Tell them everything you've heard,"[/colour] she replied. [colour=antiquewhite]"Or don't. I don't care. I'll be saying it again and again ten times just to make them hear."[/colour] More words. [colour=antiquewhite]"Because I need a tribe,"[/colour] she said, and leapt into the sky.