yoshua171

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

endured and where his past self clearly must not have had the resilience and insight to truly grasp more than the edges of the Gold, it seemed that the Azure-eyed Hunter he’d become was far better equipped for such things. Yet, it was of course not an easy thing, not even slightly pleasant, but he pushed and pushed and eventually broke through even as breathe heated his neck and an invasive force coiled about his very bones, invading his nerves even as it pressed in on his mind from every angle.

Though he was unaware of it, he’d begin to shake, first slight shivers here and there, then full body quakes that rocked through him. By the time he was nearly breaking through, nearly immersed in the expanding rays–the living tendrils of light that emanated from the brilliant core of the thread of Golden awareness deep in his mind…well, he was shaking almost violently as if he were nearly having some kind of fit or seizure. His body had leaned forward, fingers between the cobbles of the path, clawed deep into the mud wrought by the rain. Yet, his face would seem bizarrely serene, marred only by an expression of intense, shut-eyed focus.

Then it happened, the thread came into his mind and spoiled out, unraveling in a spiral until it was a solid circle–or a sphere…or a sphere within a sphere that was somehow still its own contiguous shape with no boundaries between the spheres as if the two were one and the same. Then it blossomed, like a flower…no, like a rising sun with its living rays spreading out in every direction. It glowed brightly, pulsing like a heartbeat of unearthly fire and radiance. Yet, it felt purifying, not sickly, holy rather than cloying even despite its touch–its breath, its clamorous voices–shifting all throughout his brain.

Finally with a final pulse Farren gasped, the projection of a new Rune manifested itself, and he opened his eyes all at once.

His mind felt clearer in that moment, brighter, and the sensations in his body began to fade even as he kept his focus on the Rune.

“Ophelia!” He called out after a too-quiet attempt at speech, the first having come out strange and garbled, his tongue and throat having somehow twisted in impossible directions.

Then, even as he held the Rune, Farren decided to try one other thing. He called upon the Messengers, willing them to try and interpret the Rune…perhaps to tell him what they could of its strange nature and the connections they could feel spilling off from its Golden Radiance and off distantly into some other realm of the Nightmare. Perhaps like with Memories and items and armaments they could give them some insight here as well.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

felt his mind subtly expand with each Rune he obtained, but it wasn’t entirely pleasant all the way through. Like building muscle, it was sore and weak before it was strong again, but when it no longer hurt it was far stronger than before. After a brief time, really only a few moments, his mind settled, and with these new insights and experiences–the new perspective he’d gained and the grounding it offered him–Farren turned his attention inward once more. Rather...he would have, but instead he gestured to Ophelia for the brand once she had finished. Then, once he'd received it, he allowed himself a few moments of peace before he turned his mind to the strange task that he'd felt drawn to since the Memory had faded.

However, this was riskier, so heedless of how wet and miserable it was…Farren sat down on the cobbled path and closed his eyes as a took a deep breath, head tilted forward, chin slightly tucked to let the rain run off him without entering his nose or building up at his closed eyes. Slowly, as he reached inwards, the pitter-patter of the rain, the gentle wet slip of droplets across his body, and the clinging of his wet garments drifted away. Those physical sensations became distant and muted and somehow, in his Mind’s Eye he began to get a distinct sense for that strange thread of insidious influence that he’d apparently always had.

Farren didn’t know what it was, but to leave it nestled deep in his mind, to let it give rise to fear and dread and unease just felt…wrong. It felt like the remnant of an experience he no longer remembered, perhaps a trauma that now would only hamper him if he didn’t confront it.

Thus, as that pristine Golden thread grew closer, and brighter, in his awareness he sought it out rather than shying away. Though he moved not at all, he imagined reaching out to it with a steady careful hand and just once...'strumming' that Golden Thread inside him, perhaps to see how it would sing.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

sank into the memory and for its duration lost himself in the experiences of the man to whom it had belonged. No thoughts plagued his mind in those moments beyond the ones sourced from ‘Izzy’, and similarly none of his own emotions affected him for the duration. He’d expected it to be more like watching someone else from afar, an aloof sort of observer, but as Farren regained awareness of his own condition–the Memory fading into the past where it no longer captured the entirety of his attention–he found himself somewhat unmoored. Rather than having been an unseen, unfeeling observer to someone else’s experience, he felt strange in his own body. The strange phenomena allowed him some respite however, and the Memory a greater perspective than he’d had before. As frightening as some of the experiences had been while he was in them, now they only made some of his own problems feel small and far more tenable than before.

His heartbeat grew calmer and though that same thread of insidious ‘twisting’ gold remained, it did not seem nearly so bad as before–though indeed its intensity had not waned in the slightest. Straightening up from the position he’d had to take to share the Memory alongside the others, Farren glanced between them briefly, finding himself strangely grounded in that moment. Then he heard his name and so his eyes turned to Ophelia as she spoke, demonstrating how to show her–and perhaps the others–the rune that Skinner had given them.

‘So strange,’ he thought absently as he took in her words, ‘...that this is my life now….’ When she had finished explaining and demonstrating to the best of her ability, Farren simply nodded and took the projection case, aligning it as she had shown him. It didn’t take him long, but that was the easier component to the process.

For the rest, Farren closed his eyes and focused. At first all he felt was the rain and wind on his skin, his clothes and hair plastered against his body or hanging heavily from his form. However, as he recalled the moment that the rune had imprinted itself into his mind, Farren found those sensations fading. His thoughts shifted from a more natural quiet to something more clamorous and feverish. He gritted his teeth, then bared them without realizing. His brow screwed up in a frown and a low sound his throat–not quite a growl–became apparent, something like a rough humming noise. Farren’s feet shifted slightly and his muscles grew tense, then relaxed, then tensed again like those of a predator preparing to pounce. Finally he felt more than saw the rune manifest in his Mind’s Eye. It did not appear gradually, but instead all at once, as if it had been clawed into his brain by a series of clawed swipes from some unseen beastial entity tearing at his mind. Yet, it didn’t hurt, instead…he just felt a rumbling, vibrating heat and a pang of hunger roll through his body. In that same moment the rune would become visible to Ophelia and any others who were close enough to see.

Once he had held it for a few seconds–long enough for the others to learn it–Farren relaxed. For a moment he regarded the projector case. Something tickled at his mind…a curiosity that he’d been suppressing almost since he’d awoken some hours ago. If Ophelia moved to take the case from him, he would hand it to her–his attention seeming to be elsewhere for a moment before he answered an earlier question she had implied. “I’d gladly learn whatever you have to share. Such things are perhaps far more valuable than I had thought…” that said he fell silent again. If she chose to show him what Runes she had acquired, he would pay attention, allowing them to be imprinted on his mind, but as soon as that was done his attention would begin to drift once again.

Something was pulling on his attention….

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

was glad to be heard, and truthfully as the others spoke–Doll included–he was quietly grateful for the distraction. For beneath his tense, but mostly controlled exterior, his mind was a roiling sea of fear, unease, intense rage, and a tingling writhing something that he’d been largely unaware of until they’d encountered and then departed the Garden. That forced serenity…it had awakened him, after a fashion, to the slippery oil of madness that had sunk deep into the cracks and crevices of his consciousness, hiding from the light.

So when Gerlinde mentioned going to Yahar’gul, if only to investigate and kill Followers, Farren’s eyes shifted to her, growing intense to a point near desperate mania. The fiery rage roiled in his belly and for a few moments drowned out the sense of all else as his blood sang with the hunter’s need for violence. “Let’s go to Yahar’gul first. There are a great many factions and forces aside that are moving without our awareness. We know only the barest outline of the Followers’ true aims and machinations…and the echoes would make any of our other ventures easier by far.” Though his voice was steady, the look in his eye spoke not of a decision derived largely from logic, but rather from raw need.

Farren needed to kill something. Needed the exquisite, all-consuming experience of echoes flowing into his blood as a body was torn or crushed or splintered through the direct enacting of his will. Somehow, he knew it would ground him in the here and now…take him away from the terrible powerlessness he’d felt. His words were just a justification…a rationalization for that need, and he said little else as he waited with barely veiled impatience for their reply.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

shifted slightly in place and raised his gaze, realizing that Ophelia was further away than he’d thought…not far, but up the path and in the now open doorway to the sole building in the Hunter’s Dream. Perhaps she hadn’t heard him, he hadn’t been terribly loud, hadn’t projected…and she was caught up in a frenzy of her own thoughts, it seemed. He understood that much at least.

Teeth still gritted, Farren exhaled sharply, then pulled in another breath as he forced himself to move, walking up the gently ascending steps laid into the hill until he was only a few feet from the two women. It might seem to them that he was giving them more space than was necessary even by social standards, but the reality was that he stood slightly further out because of his own state. He didn’t entirely trust himself just then, even if he wasn’t entirely sure why–though he did have hints. Before he had a chance to reiterate what he’d said a few moments ago, Gerlinde more or less did so, explaining that slaying the Vicar was not a wise option–or at least that it was one with drastic consequences.

Despite her off-kilter and sometimes manic nature, Farren was glad that someone else seemed to be on even remotely the same page as him. However, as Gerlinde mentioned something ‘gold’ having manifested and stretched towards Ophelia during their interaction with the Vicar, Farren found himself instinctually taking a step back.

His mind itched, eyes peered out from angles at the periphery of his vision, and a sinuous tingling went down his back–almost as if something impossibly smooth had run itself down his spine.

Farren’s entire body stiffened, but he took a breath, then two, and relaxed again. Why had that elicited such a reaction? Had he ever seen anything like that before?

“I…don’t like this…wh-whatever this is,” he said lowly, his eyelid twitching slightly more even than before. His chest felt tight, but he kept breathing, even though it felt like his lungs were constricting themselves somehow. Unlike anything they’d encountered since their awakening, it seemed that whatever was going on with the Vicar…or at least near him…truly frightened Farren. He’d felt fear since becoming a hunter, but not anything like this…not anything that he couldn’t tamp down or push through. Somehow, whatever was going on with… ‘the gold’ could just…brush away his defenses like they were so much chaff, leaving him naked and utterly exposed to its touch.

He hated it.

Farren latched onto that hatred, his jaw squaring as he found some measure of his more familiar confidence. “That said…I…I need to know what it is. What this ‘gold’ influence is…and how it can be combated.” Though his voice had a slight tremor when he said the word, it was clear that he was resolute. They needed to know more…and he needed to find a way to shield himself, for all of them to be protected from it…whatever it was.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

remained in that state for some time, even as part of his mind picked up on Ophelia’s words as she almost frantically organized her thoughts aloud. Some small part of him acknowledged and even accepted her apology, but most of him latched onto it with vicious teeth and wished only to dig deeper. His finger’s clawed at the cobblestone and dirt of the uneven pathway beneath him even as rain soaked him to the bone, the wind chilling him as it did so. Farren fixated on that chill, because in his chest a torrid spark was building, finding kindling in his disgust where it roiled as nausea in his stomach.

He was glad for his position, his face hidden by the angle and the slight shroud of his black hair as it draped down, quickly slicking to his face due to the rain. Farren marveled at the feeling in his body and knew his expression would be something terrible to behold, his eyes feverish with anger, brows deeply furrowed and drawn together, lips slightly pulled back, teeth bared, one eye twitching intermittently as unease and confusion sublimated into rage–an all devouring impulse to destroy…if only to feel anything else.

Yet, Farren did not submit to that emotion, for even bereft of experience, there was some sense in him that that destructive wroth growing in his stomach would only burn him bridges. So, like a skilled smith, he tempered it, forcing his expression into something calmer–though his eyebrow and lid still twitched occasionally. He started to slow his ragged breathing, lengthening each inhale and exhale bit-by-bit.

However, Ophelia’s mention of the Vicar seemed to trigger something in his brain, like a writhing as every other part of him reacted, while at his core he seemed to recite only that Harold was a nice old man. Farren’s brow twitched again and some similarly deep part of him twisted and turned with a quiet sort of madness that he hadn’t even realized he’d had. Farren swallowed hard, and focused on his breathing…responding after a moment–even though she hadn’t addressed him.

“Why kill him? He seemed harmless enough…even wise?” The last word came out as a question, even though internally he’d thought it a statement. He frowned again, less severely this time, then finally he slowly pushed to his feet. While he wasn’t shaking and not a tremor went through even his hands, there was something unsteady about him as he stood. Where before he had always seemed solid and stalwart, now he seemed somehow less sure of himself.

Farren gritted his teeth hard enough to cause himself pain, then slowly relaxed again. “Besides, killing the Vicar would make the entirety of the Church our enemy…and whatever you’re seeing in him that perhaps I can’t…I doubt killing him would resolve the problem.” His words were strained, like the idea of killing the Vicar was not just absurd, but almost alien…and certainly uncomfortable. Still, while there was some sense of respect and deference to the man even removed from his presence, Farren seemed far more logical than he’d been in the Garden. Small victories, one supposed….

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

felt his blood tremble, like some unearthly vibration had passed through his entire body from head to toe, however, he barely noticed the sensation as he stumbled into the Dream. The transition, this time, was not a smooth one, where usually he’d have simply awoken in the same (or nearly the same) mental state before the shift into the Nightmare, this time he went from unnaturally relaxed–and nearly blissed out–and into a state of near-shock, abject confusion, and intense disorientation.

The whiplash of his shift from one state to the other was in fact so stark and sudden that Farren did not catch himself after the stumble, and instead fell to one knee…and then promptly vomited. As his senses returned to him, it was like his mind simultaneously ‘closed’ as his guard came up and–in some ways narrowed his perspective–even as his awareness expanded as he once more regained the vigilance that he’d maintained until their arrival in the Lumenflower Garden. Yet, as he thought back, the too-close memory of that place looming large in his mind, Farren recalled only a sense of peace and serenity. Freedom even.

So why did he feel so nauseous? He’d merely met the Vicar…that nice old man and despite Ophelia’s warnings, he didn’t understand why he ought to have been cautious of him. Farren’s brow furrowed, his hair blowing frantically in the brisk wind. The garden had seemed so beautiful, but quickly his associations with it shifted, its strange unearthly light coming to represent whatever was now causing bile to rise in his throat.

Farren swallowed hard, jaw clenching savagely, teeth pressed together, lips slightly pulled back in a grimace. His breathing was ragged and for once, the azure-eyed hunter made no attempt to calm himself down, instead allowing himself to exist in that state of deep unpleasantness.

When he finally spoke, his words came out raspy and rough, as if his throat had been ravaged by days of coughing, “I’m never going back there.”

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

surprisingly didn’t resist her much, having intended to depart anyways. It was better that they were all going, they’d be more effective as a group whichever choice of destination they decided on. It turned out that while she likely did anyways, Ophelia wouldn’t need to pay him that much mind, for on his own he gave the Vicar a respectful half-bow as he had earlier, and then turned to head for the lantern. When he reached it, he’d inevitably reach out to it…not knowing in truth what the Dream would hold for him.

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

wondered to himself why Ophelia seemed in such a hurry and, indeed, why she also seemed intent upon staying together. He appreciated the sense of camaraderie though, it was a pleasant, almost touching thing, but as events continued it quickly slipped away from him without further consideration. Still, he supposed that they ought to go soon enough, after all the Vicar had enlightened them of many things that needed doing in the city at large and it didn’t serve anyone for them to be idle.

Farren gave Harold a half bow, dipping his head and shoulders down slightly as he leaned forward, a greater show of deference than he’d given literally anyone up until that point.“I appreciate the invitation, Vicar, though I do think the Hunt is likely to keep us rather busy. Still, perhaps we will make time,” he said, offering a small smile, his eyes bright with a pleasantness that was sickeningly against his nature.

“Speaking of the Hunt, perhaps we ought attend to it and visit the Cathedral later. It’s not as if it’s going anywhere.”

"Why don't you take Torquil back to the Dream, then, love? We'll join you anon to prepare." Ophelia replied.

Farren nodded and glanced to Torquil, then Gerlinde. “Would you prefer to stay with Ophelia and the Vicar or answer the Hunt's call?” A certain eagerness came into his voice at the mention of the Hunt, perhaps it was the simple, primal excitement of a predator...or perhaps it was something else that had no other outlet....

Night of the Hunt - Paleblood

_Farren

waited for Harold’s response, but found Ophelia interjecting upon the brief silence, perhaps meaning to lay out her grievances to the Vicar. He supposed that was reasonable enough and though he found her questioning the man to be presumptuous, he could at least understand how most would simply not be as willing to accept the fact that Vicar Harold gave out only what he knew others could parse. Surely the same was the case here…for if the details of his research were truly relevant to their pursuits, it just made sense that the Vicar would have been forthcoming with the details.

After all, he was a nice old man with no reason to withhold information, especially if that information would actively benefit the people he could have informed. Still, while it seemed the Vicar listened, there was something about his blank serene expression that told Farren he wasn’t bothered. Perhaps not amused by the disrespect, but at least not frustrated with Ophelia’s insistent prying.

As such, Farren relaxed further, only tensing as he caught sight of Gerlinde’s hand coming to rest upon her threaded cane. His dulled azure eyes narrowed slightly and instinctively, his own hand found not one the Blades of Mercy, but rather his pouch of bullets. One thumb and finger began to slip in as the silence pressed in and the tension thickened in the air. While he remained entirely calm–beyond calm in fact, so unbothered that it was actually uncanny–Farren pinched a lead bullet between pointer and thumb and then let his arm go mostly slack, his fingers aligning with his pistol.

His gaze didn’t stay on Gerlinde, no he’d only glanced at her briefly, his eyes grazing over her figure before resting briefly on Torquil, and then Ophelia. Then…his eyes would have almost unfocused–though it would be a bit hard to tell–as he stared at a point equidistant from everyone present, allowing him to see everyone at once with his peripheral vision. However, before anything could happen, the Vicar’s lips subtly curved upwards and then he spoke.

The words were brief, not perfunctory, but reasonable so far as he could tell, and then his attention was captured and redirected as the Vicar addressed him. Farren bowed his head once respectful, and spoke up, “Ah, certainly, but just Farren is fine,” he replied, his tone not reverent, but open, light, and almost absent its usual gruffness. His eyes seemed to focus slightly more, becoming less dull as Harold addressed him directly.

“We’ve not seen it ourselves, so I can’t give you specifics, but we happened upon a brutally slain Cleric Beast in the Industrial Ward. It had been…impaled on a statue in a large courtyard.” Farren frowned slightly, “There were numerous, far-too-large, black feathers…like those of a raven or crow, but longer than I’m tall…all strewn about. Several other beasts as well, all eviscerated.” Recalling the sight almost had his calm wavering, a sense of unease trying to rise, before it was suppressed entirely. His frown faded slightly, “Moira’s investigating the matter…scouting really, but after we split with her, we spoke to some of the residents of the ward. They said the Crowmother had claimed the entire ward some years ago and had been protecting it ever since.”

He shook his head slightly, for while he couldn’t ever feel truly disturbed in the Vicar’s presence–a fact that he was not at all aware of–there was a vague almost-worry that nagged at his mind as he explained what details they’d been able to glean. “They also referenced a Crow Hunter, but we weren’t able to get anything else about that.”