***** Author's Note *****
I feel a bit bad about how long I made people wait for the last chapter, so have another one sooner to make up for it! Haha! Please enjoy!
Don't want to wait for more? Now Available! Read up to Chapter 86 on my discord! Link in my bio!
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A blackness of oil slopped and oozed, forming twisting, gnarled hands which grasped upwards from the slick. Gaping faces, jaws dragging in open-mouthed, yet silent wails drew past, just under the surface of the fleshy slurry. A metallic tang supplanted what little, if any, air that swirled in a constricting mist above the remnant shades of the once-living, ever seeking to cling to life not granted to them. No single entity held certainty of identity; the mass was everything at once, indistinguishable, but once in a while something would break through the sludge. Sometimes it was just a bubble of noxious gas that reeked of death bursting forth, but sometimes, it was something more.
Such reaching claws of bone and rotting ichor formed manacles around thin pale wrists as Alaesia tried to swallow her horror. The void that engulfed her was neither dead nor alive, but some vile state in between; a prison, akin to Mordor itself perhaps, but the moment another comparison crept into her subconscious, there was nothing she could do to force it back. Her breath seized, as she tried to will herself to find some guiding light that might rebuke the darkness, but a putrid sensation filled her stomach; it was the feeling of orc blood on her tongue, all the while splatters of the murk crept closer all around. It was pitch as night to her eyes, and yet her peripheral vision flickered with threats she knew too well.
"Ghaaashhh-dooorozgaaa..." A shrill, ear-tearing hiss grew loud in Alaesia's ears and a piercing yellow eye peeled open before her. She recoiled in silence, her voice muffled for the black blood threatened to choke her. A corpse rose up from a wave of moldering foulness; it crept with singular intent closer and closer, with fragments of its face and limbs plodding back into the pool as it moved. But Alaesia couldn't move; the blackness clung to her as much as it stuck to the unmistakable, deformed body of the thing she thought she would never have to face again. Vezhir was seeking her, even in death...
His eye's poisonous glow illuminated a wicked grimace of needle-like fangs, glinting off an entirely black twin orb, not unlike the Witch's eyes, and sloughing the mire from a fractured, skull-white face; it seemed in some way they were one and the same, sharing a fetid form and vying for control of the mangled body. Every inch of the uruk was putrefied in a grotesque, undulating, and pustule-ridden way. Vezhir's face, split and piecemealed with the witch's, looked as though it was moments away from crumbling to pieces, only held together by threads of inky mucilage that he was bathed in. Yet still he crawled towards Alaesia, claws seeking with a senseless sort of will, and from that gaping maw, the hissing turned to a chant; terrible echoes of the searing spells the witch had once weaved over her, punctuated by disembodied, distant screeching of her name.
Alaesia turned to flee, or at least she tried. She could barely move, suctioned in place by the ooze. It slithered all across her but she pulled and twisted with all her might. She gasped for breath as the tendrils snapped away and finally she bolted; a hair's breadth before Vezhir's wicked claws found her. Onward she ran, but the blackness still hemmed the woman in, the echo of the Witch's voice and Vezhir's merging into a cacophonous rasp so close, Alaesia was sure they were breathing down her neck. No matter how hard she ran, she seemed to go nowhere.
A weight dragged at her legs like chain links tethered to some unseen post, and her arms were burdened with something she knew she couldn't bear to look at. Whatever Alaesia carried, every fiber of her being screamed to not look. She knew the moment she turned her eyes down to her arms, there would be nothing to stop what really haunted her. And yet her gaze was drawn unwillingly downward as she tried to slog on through the mire.
Her hands, no... Her claws, where human hands ought to have been, were skeletal and coated by the same black sludge as filled the void and her crooked, gnarled fingers were hooked like talons into an all-too-familiar bundle. The shrieks and chants looming behind Alaesia somehow were drowned out by an awful breathless silence coming from the thing in her grasp, the kind of silence that only the dead could make. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't thrust the bundle away; her claws couldn't unlatch and the ooze slithered up the tips of her fingers, threatening to consume the bundle as well.
Something within Alaesia panicked at the sight, as if she knew on some soul-deep level the threads were the embodiment of Mordor's corruption, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. It has already overtaken her, climbing up her legs, then her chest and arms, and starting to force its way between her teeth, into her eyes and nose. The bundle in her arms was quickly infested as well, and when she looked down into the folds of tattered cloth, now stained black, the tiny face of an orcish infant stared back at her, it too becoming consumed by the dark power until all that remained in her field of view was its harrowing dark gray eyes quickly flooded by the ink-like corruption.
Alaesia jerked awake, gasping for the breath stolen from her by the sludge in her dream, before a soft sob caught in her chest. It was still dark all around, but this was a natural darkness, that of night, only broken ever-so-slightly by a faint glow, however the warmth she felt around her was not that of a fire. Rather the low rumbling that vibrated against her body built a picture of exactly where she was. Like a mountain cave, she was sheltered within Ar-Tashk's embrace as he coiled around her, where it seemed he had fallen into slumber, though likely unwillingly; no one could fight blood loss and exhaustion off forever. Stone walls of the olog's rocky hide blocked the chill of the wind, but still, Alaesia shivered.
There was no doubt in her mind why such things as the evils in her dreams haunted her; there would always be some foul torment waiting in the shadows no matter where she went or did. Escaping Mordor's corruption was impossible, hopeless. Everything Mordor touched was an abomination. Even a child, orcish or otherwise, was not immune from such poison.
She hesitated, trying to collect her hazy thoughts surrounding the final moments of her nightmare, That... wasn't mine...
As frightfully real as her dream had felt it started to dissipate quickly into subconsciousness, lulled away by the sound of Ar-Tashk's guttural snoring. However, the gray eyes, of the orc child she had been carrying in her dream, lingered at the forefront of her mind's eye, and its face... Only with the clarity of wakefulness did she realize, the dream infant's face was not cleaved by a cleft as her own deformed offspring's had been. It was an entirely different being altogether.
That and the long echoes of pain in her abdomen made Alaesia stiffen with rising panic. What could such a dream mean? A wave of dread washed over her, fearing that perhaps it was a premonition. Was she destined to suffer spawning another orcish child? More? Was she fated to breed more and more soldiers for her masters until death finally claimed her?
Lass... A stern voice cut sharply into her mind. It's alright. Yer safe. It was juss a dream.
Her eyes darted up, seeking Zathra where he was sitting watch by the low-burning fire; it wouldn't last much longer, and venturing off to collect more wood was out of the question. For a split second relief touched her at the sight of him, only to be quickly replaced by adrenaline firing through her veins. She was silent in response, for a pervasive observation held her tongue: Zathra, too, had dark, gray eyes.
Distrust suddenly made Alaesia's stomach well with acrid bile climbing the back of her throat until it stung even her nose. She could only just remember the sensation of searing pain within her belly, like a hot iron cauterizing flesh, before she had succumbed to unconsciousness. He had done that to her, this foul orc with his infernal magics. He had shoved his ghostly hand through her gut, doing who knew what under the guise of healing her, violating her in mystical and unnatural ways; perhaps seeding his own blood in her flesh... The woman's mind was running wild with horrible assumptions, each one more disturbed than the last.
SKATOR— NO, Lass! The orc shifted from his position, as if to move towards her, I would NEVER do that to ya, I promise! Ya have ta believe me. I was just tryin' ta help—
"S-Stay away!" Alaesia hissed, her voice faint and unnerved, but it was enough to cause Zathra to pause and Ar-Tashk to stir in his sleep.
The olog's weight shifted as he lifted a hand with blind drowsiness until he found Alaesia's head, and stroked her hair as softly as he could while mumbling, "Shar... Amul Al...ae..sia... Amul..."
Please, trust me, Lass. I didn't mean ta 'urt ya, Zathra tried once more to dispel the hurt and anger he could sense boiling up within her. I shoulda listened to ya. I shoulda realized it'd be too much...
Alaesia's silence cursed him; what little understanding or trust had built up between them was shattered like an eggshell; Zathra feared it might be irreparable. She lay back down, curling away from the orc and back into her master's embrace. The warm and strong brace of his hand pressed against her back was a welcome shield to ward away any devils, real or dreamt up, as she lay awake in silence until finally, sleep overcame her once more.
***** Translations *****
Ghaaashhh-dooorozgaaa... - (My) Test subject... (Ghash-dorozga is the derogatory title Vezhir used to refer to Alaesia by)
SKATOR— - Hell— (Zathra was saying "Skator ghash!" meaning Hellfire!, but cut himself off.)
Shar... Amul Al...ae..sia... Amul... - Hush... Be calm Alaesia... Be calm...