Post by Huka on Feb 2, 2016 13:44:32 GMT -6
Walking. A basic concept, a simple instinct of mobility. Moving from place to place. Nomadic. To exist in another place, usually where you aren’t even native to. The simple creature doesn’t even ponder much on such an innate function to the body. So meaningless, one wouldn’t even think about it until it's taken from you.
Unable to move in tight enclosed space. To have mind still turning, aware and trying to understand why you are not moving. A thousand, perhaps a million, purposes have moving in its agenda. The need scratches. It demands till your very psyche burns like a thousand shards of glassed earth stab into your sanity.
Not many can handle such a rattling sensation. Not many experience such a simply easy notion, to not move. A Muram experiences it.
Buried under crushing pounds of sand when they turn of age at the eighth rotation of the Father and his dancing twins in the scarlet sky. They had endure what their ancestors endured in a time without their protective keeps. Armed with only spears and wits in that sea without water. When the heat exhaustion didn’t take you, the sand prowlers were waiting. Always waiting from the shimmering dunes. One might step on a crawling rock-stinger. Another would be bitten in their sleep by the dancing sun-scales.
Then night came, the twin sisters – Qikost and Suban – took their masculine counterparts’ place and the boiling heat was replaced by a starless chill. The weak shivered to death or eaten by their eternal predators until the whispers of their cunning forebears told them to burrow. Use their claws and strength to sink under the sand that was still warm and hide. Muram lungs were powerful, born for this with the slightest perk of our snouts to breath. Pray that nothing crawled in for the departure of mortality or worse, Dune Wyrms devouring in their gluttonous swim through the Death-Lands’ stretching sea.
When the suns began their ascendance and take their tired sisters’ place, the Muram would rise again like a clan of the dead. Such stories made to the ears of the other clans, even to this day remain as living legend with the far-reaching assassins that protect the ancient ways.
Now, in the time of keeps and starships, this art of survival and hunting opportunity was instilled. What would be madness to others, was surviving to some. Til has suffered through it, lost a good number of weaker cousins who couldn’t take to the trial. Stay down till sun’s third rise or never come back up at all. Some were resentful to the harsh training that their training masters dealt them. They didn’t blink to such a thought, it was what they did in their youth, their uncles before them, and their granduncles before them. If you was weak, the Helian Desert will swallow you whole like the wyrms dragging their massive bodies under its surface till this day.
Now, Til was more grateful than ever to it.
Crouched in this tiny cell, a blockade of flickering hardlight his only obstacle, and the stench of days in it. The pungent musk of foodless vomit behind him. His comrades were already dead – killed from the discovery, committed painful suicide in their cells to preserve their tarnished honor and knowledge, or the few daring to brave through this were taken for interrogation. Now, Vana ‘Rakamee was being dragged out with a trail of his own precious blood from his smashed skull. Taken for medical attempt – and further cruel administration. His fragmented bravado eaten by the screams of their companions. Their lance…assigned under Til’s direct command. Hopefully he will bleed out before they could touch him.
Accursed heretics.
While the Lance Commander loathed the heretics, his venomous mind was howling for the one responsible for this imprisonment. Axo. That traitorous viper molded well into his role as one of the heretics’ dock workers…too well. The heretics’ whispers and valorous talks of their side in the war. The talk of removing the Prophets from the base of power. The talk of conquering what is rightfully Sangheili and no one else’s. The talk of true mastership over Covenant space and maybe beyond. Til knows and repel the tethers of this delusion with his belief in the Holy Covenant and its brotherhood.
Axo was not. He’ve failed this testament of faith and betrayed his brothers. Helped in their capture for favor with the station’s commander. Good warriors have bled and their honor will be questioned. This was not honor. That was not the Sangheili way. This was treachery to the Covenant, to the brotherhood under Sangheili command, and more importantly…Treachery to Til and his trust. Rotations in the war college, the friendship, the sparring. It meant nothing. Was it all a lie? Was it always a lie.
Betrayal is unforgivable, especially with the betrayed still living.
Since the first routine energy coil recycling of the day, the young Minor missed it during his rest from yesterday’s interrogation. The mind trying to fight off the haze of injected drugs. His wounds were still a little raw from the cuts on the softer underside to his scales and electrical prods didn’t help the uncomfortable strain to Til’s tightened muscles. Legs curled and resting to the splay of his clawed toes, the Sangheili looked like he was just doing such – crouching with his tired eyes resting. With nothing but his body glove, the warrior was grateful..anymore mass and he would be filling more tight. His chest was already throbbing in the feel of a malicious hand grasping for ever precious regulated breath. He focused that fear and gave it purpose. Purpose of being aware of every little thing.
The sparse crawl of the vermins eating through the metallic walls and scuttling their carapaced legs across the floor.
The hums of the stations.
The distant steps of patrols and their muffled talks.
The units were kept regulated by the switch of guards outside his now-solitary cell. The next one was coming in; Unggoy were busy whining about dragging the dead weight they had to drag about. Their sentry master, a short armored Sangheili with a crisscross of scars from past battles on his face. A most recent one was enough that was just one functional eye staring at the taller youth, trained and resentful with a sneer. A knowing sneer saying you will be next…sooner or later. As much as Til wanted to shiver to that thought of ending his life, he refused to bow in despair.
His head dipped though, feigning fatigue from the experiences. His scaled shoulders brushed at the tight enclosure, an average pureblood Muram would be able to fit here just fine. Sadly, Til was not average.
In the coming ticks, his wardens will learn that as well. “Get him out as well.” The Sentry ordered with a point of his drawn plasma rifle. The four remaining of the six glanced over at the low prisoner. The older major pointed its gas-sucking masked face over to the blue-armored officer, whining out in its native tongue. “You will address me proper, worm or not at all!" The scar faced heretic snarled immediately, words as proper as a psychical whip and his slavish minions recoiled as such. The shout was enough to hide the subtle hum of the plasma cycling through the walls. This refinery station was ancient to say the least, it was abandoned for a long time till the heretical uprising and the few Huragok it possessed were still fixing the vital systems, more so than the simple fluxes and energy recycling that blighted the functional works. Proved good to hide modern Covenant sensors as a boon.
However, at this moment, the hand reaching for the controls. Til coiled his muscles subtly as they burned. It was coming, he will save Vana and they will give the Covenant the needed coordinates…but first, vengeance was expected. Honor restored. lost lives given purpose. Equilibrium. Movement.
When the shields were flickering for release, they suddenly dropped and so did the lights. The last colored thing that Til glanced at was the Sentry's face at the growing hum under the walls before the skrill pounce. Bless the Spirits…the Third Sunrise has come.
Unable to move in tight enclosed space. To have mind still turning, aware and trying to understand why you are not moving. A thousand, perhaps a million, purposes have moving in its agenda. The need scratches. It demands till your very psyche burns like a thousand shards of glassed earth stab into your sanity.
Not many can handle such a rattling sensation. Not many experience such a simply easy notion, to not move. A Muram experiences it.
Buried under crushing pounds of sand when they turn of age at the eighth rotation of the Father and his dancing twins in the scarlet sky. They had endure what their ancestors endured in a time without their protective keeps. Armed with only spears and wits in that sea without water. When the heat exhaustion didn’t take you, the sand prowlers were waiting. Always waiting from the shimmering dunes. One might step on a crawling rock-stinger. Another would be bitten in their sleep by the dancing sun-scales.
Then night came, the twin sisters – Qikost and Suban – took their masculine counterparts’ place and the boiling heat was replaced by a starless chill. The weak shivered to death or eaten by their eternal predators until the whispers of their cunning forebears told them to burrow. Use their claws and strength to sink under the sand that was still warm and hide. Muram lungs were powerful, born for this with the slightest perk of our snouts to breath. Pray that nothing crawled in for the departure of mortality or worse, Dune Wyrms devouring in their gluttonous swim through the Death-Lands’ stretching sea.
When the suns began their ascendance and take their tired sisters’ place, the Muram would rise again like a clan of the dead. Such stories made to the ears of the other clans, even to this day remain as living legend with the far-reaching assassins that protect the ancient ways.
Now, in the time of keeps and starships, this art of survival and hunting opportunity was instilled. What would be madness to others, was surviving to some. Til has suffered through it, lost a good number of weaker cousins who couldn’t take to the trial. Stay down till sun’s third rise or never come back up at all. Some were resentful to the harsh training that their training masters dealt them. They didn’t blink to such a thought, it was what they did in their youth, their uncles before them, and their granduncles before them. If you was weak, the Helian Desert will swallow you whole like the wyrms dragging their massive bodies under its surface till this day.
Now, Til was more grateful than ever to it.
Crouched in this tiny cell, a blockade of flickering hardlight his only obstacle, and the stench of days in it. The pungent musk of foodless vomit behind him. His comrades were already dead – killed from the discovery, committed painful suicide in their cells to preserve their tarnished honor and knowledge, or the few daring to brave through this were taken for interrogation. Now, Vana ‘Rakamee was being dragged out with a trail of his own precious blood from his smashed skull. Taken for medical attempt – and further cruel administration. His fragmented bravado eaten by the screams of their companions. Their lance…assigned under Til’s direct command. Hopefully he will bleed out before they could touch him.
Accursed heretics.
While the Lance Commander loathed the heretics, his venomous mind was howling for the one responsible for this imprisonment. Axo. That traitorous viper molded well into his role as one of the heretics’ dock workers…too well. The heretics’ whispers and valorous talks of their side in the war. The talk of removing the Prophets from the base of power. The talk of conquering what is rightfully Sangheili and no one else’s. The talk of true mastership over Covenant space and maybe beyond. Til knows and repel the tethers of this delusion with his belief in the Holy Covenant and its brotherhood.
Axo was not. He’ve failed this testament of faith and betrayed his brothers. Helped in their capture for favor with the station’s commander. Good warriors have bled and their honor will be questioned. This was not honor. That was not the Sangheili way. This was treachery to the Covenant, to the brotherhood under Sangheili command, and more importantly…Treachery to Til and his trust. Rotations in the war college, the friendship, the sparring. It meant nothing. Was it all a lie? Was it always a lie.
Betrayal is unforgivable, especially with the betrayed still living.
Since the first routine energy coil recycling of the day, the young Minor missed it during his rest from yesterday’s interrogation. The mind trying to fight off the haze of injected drugs. His wounds were still a little raw from the cuts on the softer underside to his scales and electrical prods didn’t help the uncomfortable strain to Til’s tightened muscles. Legs curled and resting to the splay of his clawed toes, the Sangheili looked like he was just doing such – crouching with his tired eyes resting. With nothing but his body glove, the warrior was grateful..anymore mass and he would be filling more tight. His chest was already throbbing in the feel of a malicious hand grasping for ever precious regulated breath. He focused that fear and gave it purpose. Purpose of being aware of every little thing.
The sparse crawl of the vermins eating through the metallic walls and scuttling their carapaced legs across the floor.
The hums of the stations.
The distant steps of patrols and their muffled talks.
The units were kept regulated by the switch of guards outside his now-solitary cell. The next one was coming in; Unggoy were busy whining about dragging the dead weight they had to drag about. Their sentry master, a short armored Sangheili with a crisscross of scars from past battles on his face. A most recent one was enough that was just one functional eye staring at the taller youth, trained and resentful with a sneer. A knowing sneer saying you will be next…sooner or later. As much as Til wanted to shiver to that thought of ending his life, he refused to bow in despair.
His head dipped though, feigning fatigue from the experiences. His scaled shoulders brushed at the tight enclosure, an average pureblood Muram would be able to fit here just fine. Sadly, Til was not average.
In the coming ticks, his wardens will learn that as well. “Get him out as well.” The Sentry ordered with a point of his drawn plasma rifle. The four remaining of the six glanced over at the low prisoner. The older major pointed its gas-sucking masked face over to the blue-armored officer, whining out in its native tongue. “You will address me proper, worm or not at all!" The scar faced heretic snarled immediately, words as proper as a psychical whip and his slavish minions recoiled as such. The shout was enough to hide the subtle hum of the plasma cycling through the walls. This refinery station was ancient to say the least, it was abandoned for a long time till the heretical uprising and the few Huragok it possessed were still fixing the vital systems, more so than the simple fluxes and energy recycling that blighted the functional works. Proved good to hide modern Covenant sensors as a boon.
However, at this moment, the hand reaching for the controls. Til coiled his muscles subtly as they burned. It was coming, he will save Vana and they will give the Covenant the needed coordinates…but first, vengeance was expected. Honor restored. lost lives given purpose. Equilibrium. Movement.
When the shields were flickering for release, they suddenly dropped and so did the lights. The last colored thing that Til glanced at was the Sentry's face at the growing hum under the walls before the skrill pounce. Bless the Spirits…the Third Sunrise has come.
