::Experience::
Chapter Four: The Beginning of Pain
Koi opened his fist slowly, looking down at the tear shaped gem. "Siren's Tear… How fitting…," He murmured under his breath, turning his hand just so the light of the setting sun sparkled off of the blue stone. In the strange light, the blue seemed to be streaked with red blood.
He closed his eyes and curled his fingers back around the item, taking a deep, sighing breath before continuing to walk down the dusty streets of Aht Urhgan. Primrose and Aymid should be at least part way to San d'Oria by now… I wonder what they're having for dinner… He thought as his stomach growled under the stomach plate of his chest armor. He'd been too uptight the past few hours to enjoy a lunch, let alone a mid-meal snack or dinner. He didn't want to do this. He hadn't planned on getting this call ever in his life…
How could my secret have gotten out…? Had someone followed me? Done research? Cast a spell to read my mind…? I kept such safe guard over it to make sure this would never happen, yet… here I am… He sighed inwardly, sliding his hand into the tiny, padded bag at his side that he made to keep the gem safe. His coin purse jingled beside it.
"Would you like me to tell your fortune, good sir?" Came an old, weary voice from beneath a bent over cloak. The woman's face was covered by the veil, and she used an awkwardly gnarly looking walking stick to support the hump on her back. A large, strangely sleek looking black Chocobo swiveled its head into view, piercing eyes, one pink and one green, staring at him. The thing looked old, like its master, no saddle on it's well worn back.
Koi turned, looking down at the old lady almost sadly before nodding. "How much?"
"No cost," Came the crackly, cackling voice again. She used the crutch to lower herself to the ground, the Chocobo letting her use its head as another support. Koi kneeled down on one knee, watching as the fortune teller pulled bones with strange markings out from under her cloak. Holding them to her mouth, still hidden by the hood, she whispered a few, strange-languaged words into the old things and cast them onto the dusty ground. They feel in a strange shape, a few crossing, a few face down, and one, lonely one far off from the others. She pointed to a few, recalling his past with almost painful precision, talking of past loves and broken dreams. A broken home since he was a child. She pointed to another bone, a small symbol of a tree on it, and the two bones that crossed over it, a lightning bolt like shape etched so deep it almost his the marrow and a blank, bleached white bone.
"Your road from here will be hard and fraught with danger. Your ties to the natural world will be severed by a happening in the near future, but if you persevere your life will be prolonged and strength will follow. However, the white bone suggests your fears and beliefs are clouding your mind, giving you the inability to choose the correct direction in life, which could prove fatal."
"What does this one mean?" Koi pointed to the lonely bone, the smallest of them all. She picked it up and turned it over in her wrinkled hands, chuckling a bit as she saw the tiniest indent of a heart on it.
"The face down heart. As insignificant as what you had for breakfast, yet it can do so much when it comes to your future."
"What does it mean, though..?" Koi pressed, leaning in as the woman's voice became more and more of a whisper.
"Love is an elusive creature. Treat it right, tame it correctly, and you will have a partner for life in the form of a child." Koi smiled, tilting his head to get a better look at the bone. Her voice became stern then. "But treat it like the child it is, and not the mature adult it will be, disable its petals before it has time blossom and you may destroy a perfectly good flower."
Koi kneeled there for a few moments as the woman collected the bones, hiding them inside her cloak again. "W-wait!" He called when he realized she'd stood and began to walk away. "What does that mean?!"
"Whatever you make of it, young one," She waved a shriveled hand at him before she seemed to disappear in the dimming light. Koigokoro stood slowly, shifting uneasily in his armor. A few of those bones and predictions had scared him pretty well, but after shaking his head and smacking himself a few times to rid himself of the thoughts, he turned and continued on.
A few moments later the old woman appeared out of the shadows, straightening up, the hump on her back seemed to melt into her body, and the cloak's hood dropped around her shoulders. Two long, pointy ears poked out from long, flowing raven-black hair, decorated by any number of piercings. The black chocobo appeared at her side as well, and even it looked younger, more vibrant. The Elvaan woman reached up and stroked the soft feathers of the animal, cooing to it softly as she spoke in an entertained tone. "That Hume has an interesting life ahead of him… I kept a few secrets from him, do you think that was wise?"
The chocobo looked down at her uncaringly and nipped at one of her ears. She giggled, grabbing his head and kissing his shadow black beak before follow far behind the young man.
-----
Koi raised his gauntleted hand to knock on an almost rickety wooden door, his hazel eyes gray and dark, the glaze over them almost giving him the appearance of being drunk, when really he was simply deep in thought. Before his metal plated knuckles could hit the wood, however it flew open before he could, and a large Galka met his gaze. But he knew this wasn't the person he was supposed to see.
"Down here."
His head dropped down, and his eyes followed, falling on a short Tarutaru, clad in blue robes. He looked stuck up, like he always had.
"I'm here to complete our bargain." Koi pulled the tiny gem out of the pouch and presented it to the small male. He looked it over a few times before sniffing disdainfully and turning away, flicking his wrist like a royal.
"Bring him."
The Galka reached forward, grabbing the large Hume's arms and tugging him inside. He didn't resist, instead going almost limp. The wooden door slammed behind him by an unseen force, and he was led deep into the building after being blindfolded.
Before he knew it hands were on him, tiny ones, and regular ones. No Galka hands, though. He could hear whispering, and orders shouted by the Tarutaru who'd greeted him at the door.
His armor was ripped from his body, taking chunks of his shirt with the chest plate, and shredding his pants to near bits because they didn't bother to unhook everything like you should. It was then the Galkas returned, grabbing his arms and another his ankles as they laid him flat on a slanted table and bound him there with spell-enchanted latches.
By reflex, he pulled at them lightly, and he heard a low chuckle.
The blindfold was removed.
"You thought you could escape us, didn't you?" A dark skinned, red eyed Elvaan looked down at him, a white smile plastered on his face.
"My family hid me pretty well when I was a child, you can only expect me to have picked up on their tension before you destroyed them," Koi spat, pulling at the bonds a little harder. "Why chain me down when you know I won't leave?"
"Because…" The Elvaan took a long, painful looking needle and injector from a female Taru servant, flicking it upright and pushing out the bubbles. "This is going to hurt."
"I'm not afraid of you," Koi spat again. "I'll never be afraid of you, no matter what you do to me!"
"You know that little Mithra friend you have? The Red Mage?" He chuckled, grabbing a wet swab and cleaning a patch of his skin. Koi growled.
"What did you do to her!?"
"Absolutely nothing…" He positioned the needle, prodding the skin gently. "Yet, that is." He shoved the needle into his skin and squeezed the strange liquid into him. Instantly Koi felt like the blood in his arm was burning, boiling inside his skin.
"Gn..! Gaah!!" He let out a pained scream before clenching his teeth, that arm's hand clawing involuntarily as it spread.
"In a few minutes, Koigokoro, you'll be who you were meant to be," The Elvaan talked, pulling out the needle and cleaning it on the edge of his shirt. "Granted, a little weak to start, but soon enough the creature will take over… And you'll be the weapon I've been searching for since your father's untimely death."
Koi's eyes shot to the man, burning with hate as the poison spread up his shoulder and into his chest. As it reached his heart his whole body started, his chest rising off the table in pain as the strongest muscle in any Hume's body flooded his blood with the beast. He yanked hard on the bonds, making the entire table chatter and shake with the strain. Now his whole body felt like it was on fire, but it was a fire that had oil thrown into it, continuing to burn for what seemed like eternity and he couldn't make the pain stop.
He let out yells, shouts, growls, grunts, cries of pain and agony as the poison took effect, eating his very humanity away as a beast took its place in his soul, mind and spirit. Being such a grown man, very few things moved the Hume to tears, but the pain was so excruciating more than a few manly tears seeped out of his eyes and stained his cheeks. And finally, when he had roared and ripped at the table all he could, he went limp, nearly passing out as the room swam around him. All he could do now was whimper as the rest of his human self was dissolved and lost forever, replaced with something he didn't know if he could control.
A/N: o.o;; This wasn't exactly what I thought it'd be when I updated last, so I'm sorry it isn't titled correctly.
Enjoy anyway..? xD;;
Coming soon(for realz): Chapter Five: The Whyner