Role

Chapter 6

Twas at the bottom of the river he appeared before her, a terrifying
and swirling mass of twisted and rotted wood and bone debris in
various stages of decay.

Another vision she thought. Then came the seizure. She could feel
all of the blood rushing to her forehead and her eyes were filled with
blinding light. She felt a pinch around her ankles and her vision suddenly
returned. She looked down to see the creature had grabbed her by the feet.

Alarmed, she cried out, Not yet! and it released her. Not yet! she said
repeatedly, Not yet! Once she had calmed, she took a proper estimation
of the creature, looking beyond its initial hideousness. If it wished her harm,
it certainly seemed to be biding its time. This calmed her a bit. This was
something ancient, she told herself. Something as everlasting as the Ages,
as old as the oldest gods. But it was not a god. Then it spoke to her.

She swam there for thirteen days and thirteen nights, plunged into the wet
darkness of the rivers bottom, and listened to him tell her the way of all
things, from the most ancient to the very distant future. He gave her the
eyes to see everything with a new light and by the end of those two weeks,
the full moon had grown bold enough to illuminate the rotting tree which
rose above them.

The most earth-shattering revelation to her was the notion that she might
have to, as a follower of the natural cycles of Rarywey, forswear any and
all forms of the afterlife, including the famed Azure Fields of the Maran Tarabal.

One would think that spending two weeks, wide awake and submerged in
chilling water, would take its toll on a person but Zxctikazxcti was enraptured.
Finally, the creature had said what it came to say and judged her worthy to
create more tiny ripples in the water.

It reminded her that when she met her end, it wanted to add her foot-claws
and talons to its bulging mass of wood and bones.

As it began to depart, slowly sinking into the soil of the riverbed, Zxctikazxcti
was suddenly moved to make a pledge of down payment for this gift of life
and insight which it had given her. She reached down and, using the edge
of a blade, cut off one of her long-taloned toes.

She pressed it onto the creatures body and it immediately began to take the
piece of bloody-bone into itself.

As she dragged herself out of the water and crawled onto dry land, Zxctikazxcti
spoke only one thing aloud before she collapsed into a coma like sleep.

I truly am mad.