SCENE 2 – The Cathedral of St. Hélène
The yoki is the resulting energy from the essence of the Yoma, an erring flow of abstract water. From surgical implantation, yoki may be drawn and harnessed at the bearer's pleasure. Many wondrous, supernatural abilities are allowed from the use of the yoki to augment the self; some use the yoki to fight and unleash violence, while others use yoki to endure, to survive on.
But this gift doth come with caution.
Yoki remains in the daemonic domain, and while it may provide as a tool, an instrument, it brings along the corruption inherent in the daemonic energies. As the bearer strives to strain in its usage, the yoki strives to make the bearer alike its Yoma symbiont in body and eventually soul. Although useful the alterations may be, its corrupting effects transform faster than the bearer would like that to be, and in the end, just will bring a sorrow stream.
To the naked eye, a Yoma in imitation holds itself true in nigh-every analysis. A bearer of the Yoma essence may attune their yoki to that of the Yoma, and thus find and confront it through feeling.
This is why the Organization sends for her here, for without her and her kind, the Yoma thrives on its lifestyle of destruction.
But Clare has not yet mastered this aspect of yoki manipulation, as many of her kind did. While they could freely attune to the presence of Yoma from afar, Clare is limited to yoki perception through intimate contact.
"When did the attacks first start?" she asks.
Rodnik ponders.
"A week.. a bit before a week methinks," he goes.
"Have any one of the villagers departed or arrived back then?" Clare asks.
"How should I know?" he goes. "What each person goes abound in their lives is their business, and their business alone. Anyway the attacks have been going on since.. up to last night with an entire family massacred. I've heard of these.. things and the atrocities they've done inflicted on places in my years, but to know it's here, breathing down our necks at any moment is just.. just.."
In nightmares a lifetime away, she cried. Those were the years when happiness died and the sadness came to lie.
It took away Mama.. and Papa.. and made her watch it savour every single bite on their pulverized bodies. She was screaming, through and through, and no one would help.
It left her just barely alive as its slave and toy. It would come up with terrifyingly ways of hurting her, every night in solitude, and in the mornings it dressed her outside wounds and towed her along from town to town, village to village, taking on the facsimile of its victims of late. When she tried to run away from it for many a time, it fulfilled its promises her nights would be much more unbearable.
Every night she cried.
Eventually, the tears wouldn't come anymore, and she had lost herself in the madness. Her outside wounds grew so coarse that it stopped bothering to dress up her pain. People noticed. Their talks of her grisly look was scornful, alienating - shunning. From place to place the talks made the days the stinging salt on open wounds.
It had seemed she would never see or feel the light of day ever again.
Until..
There was Teresa. Teresa came down, like an angel and made it and others like it.. die. She was wearing the light armour of the Organization, and came by, saved her. She who smiled softly, forever – she who welcomed, forever.
She saw the goodness and the same pain in Teresa's eyes, and yet when she approached her – Teresa rejected her. But still she followed her, saw her palely day and night, and still addressed her in hope. She followed Teresa as her legs buckled in from utter exhaustion. She followed her until hunger and thirstiness came upon her as second thought.. her eyes staring ahead forever at the elusive Teresa.
And Teresa looked back and saw the wonderment in her eyes, and came to know her sadness, and opened her heart once more. Teresa gave her a new name for her own name was long forgotten – Clare. Together they went, hand in hand, and they were happy. It was the everlasting moment Clare had been waiting for, and the moment had passed once more, for Teresa was slain by one who learned the sorrow streams of the yoki.
And every day, for the six years hence, she thought always of two things. The first is the happiness, memories of Mama, Papa.. and Teresa. Whether she could resolve to save them in her dreams if not in the past. The second is what she would do to the monster who took them away, if she ever found her again.
/
Sadness rouses in her eyes, but she wills it down and away, burying the poignant memories along so. For a moment, she averts her gaze from Rodrik and the others, so they would not see the emotional crack in the warrior. She looks to the frescos of the walls, seeing the painted on men and women dueling with monsters of legend and myth, forever frozen in their pose.
Clare takes a breath in.
"Do you have a registry of the residents?" she asks.
"We do.. it's in the civic chambers," Rodrik goes.
A beat.
"How many people reside in Norslof?" Clare goes.
"Around 500 or so," Rodrik goes.
"And how many would this cathedral hold?"
"The Cathedral of St. Hélène holds.. 700 in the main chamber," Rodrik goes. "Why?"
Before Clare continues on with her plan, she looks to the thinly Rodrik with suspicion, along with the elderly man and the bearded man who watches along from the side.
"Would you hold still?" Clare goes.
"Wh-"
With a hand, Clare reaches to Rodrik's temple, her other hand eased to draw her sword. Her hand is devoid of the humanly warmth, and shocks him to the touch as he lets out a slight whimper, absolutely frozen to the spot he stands. Other than his warm skin, there is no feeling of the Yoma within him.
She removers her touching hand, then turns to the bearded, silent man. Rodrik seems to almost collapse, with shaking breaths. The bearded man points to himself as she comes to approach him, as if to say a wordless 'me?'. Clare goes to touch his temple, where her icy touch making him shiver and shake and sputter out sour breathes along her face. Her silver irises meet with his frightened, amber eyes. To the man, she is the judge gazing into him and his sins.
Not him..
And lastly, Clare turns to the elderly man slump on the opulent stone throne. He breathes in efforts of holding on to dear life. He turns to her, seeing her undefined form approach.
"Wha-"
Clare touches his temple. The elderly man is just that, an elderly man, no more harm than any other. His eyes are nearly filled with the blind whiteness. She gives him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
"Is there anyone else in the cathedral?" Clare asks.
"There are, I believe, six of the servants of St. Hélène here now," Rodrik goes.
/...
After her personal outlook upon the cloaked servants, relief pours through Clare's feelings – a false relief. Though she may be free to talk easily now, the Yoma still haunts unnoticed amongst the people, unfortunately. The whispering of the moving air is magnified many-fold in the atmosphere of the open chamber.
"..I need everyone to gather inside," Clare goes.
"Everyone is already-" Rodrik goes.
"Every soul from the village?" a servant goes.
"One is the Yoma."
"That's.." Rodrik goes.
Little scuttling footsteps seem to come from all round.
"Who goes there?!" the vizier goes. "Is it you, the demi-devil who torments us so!?" He draws his longsword. The bearded man draws his own blade too – a short dirk in answer, unsure.
Some of the servants huddle close by the imposing vizier, while the others decide to seek shelter with Clare. The old man is rasping, picking up on the others' fears as he struggles around.
"Come out here! Come on out here!" Rodrik goes. "You pay for your bloodshed! I swear it!"
The monsters of the frescos have their empty eyes set on the shivering Ser Rodrik. There is something breathing here that did not love him.