Between waking and dreaming, there is a moment… and in that moment, that heartbeat, that eternity, is a space. A space between night and day. Between life and death.
A space where the soul isn't quite alive or dead. Where the mind isn't awake or asleep.
It is in this space of shapeless unreality that nightmares roam. It is in this space of fleeting eternity where ghosts and shadows live. The deeps of the subconscious psyche. The playground of deities and demons.
The Space Between.
Deep in the bowels of a seemingly endless horror-filled cavern on a forsaken island called Smuggler's Shiv...
Bloody and battered, Mal and Priyya assess the scene in the subterranean cathedral of death... The dwarf Inquisitor is about to drop. The poison from the Cobra-Avatar doing its work all too well where the sword-length fangs didn't. Lureene, the succubus, half drags the dwarf towards the distant tunnel exit, even as the beast reflexively sinks fangs into the doughty fighter one more time. Neither is likely to escape the vicious incarnation of a twisted death deity that already coils 120' of itself in anticipation of its next attack.
Mal christens the floor of the unholy chapel with a spit of blood, sanctifying it in an odd way. He wipes his mouth on his blood-streaked arm and slides his eyes over to the fleeing succubus and dwarf. "They aren't going to make it, Darkmane. Not with that over-sized maggot after them."
Priyya's sword bursts into eldritch flame, anointed by the power of Sarenrae. The small dark woman nods at the Druid-Warrior's statement while she eyes the beast, an odd smile on her face. "You know, Mal, of the many pleasures I've sampled in this world, 'Smoting an Enemy God' isn't among them... As Surya-ka-Vahaak, the idea has a certain appeal." Priyya looks at the rangy fighter. "So, are you going to see the dwarf, succubi, and princess to safety OR are you of a mind to challenge this beast with me?"
Always a man of many words, Mal answers with his usual predatory grin, then throws himself forward, his body stretching, expanding. When he hits the floor, a great black hunting cat the size of a horse locks gazes with Darkmane, a throaty growl ripping from its throat.
Matched by a second set of glowing green eyes and throaty growl from Little Sister.
The almond skinned crusader shakes her head and laughs. "Well... guess I have my answer then." That is so typically Mal. Being only slightly less impetuous than Mal and Tal, Priyya takes a moment to reflect. I hope whatever happens here, it will make worthy reading in the annals of the Order.
Priyya growls an ancient Kelesh poem, while steeling herself for her charge....
- Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
The Surya-ka-Vahaak looks at her bow with regret and hesitantly discards it on the floor...
- In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Her voice fills with defiance and the eldritch flames she often supresses burst into vivid life...
- Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
Priyya tosses away her headress, allowing her cascade of raven hair to flow as it will. She admires her blade from pommel to point one last time, idly hoping it is good enough to cause the avatar a great deal of pain. Almost as an aside, she breathes life into the poem's last stanza...
- It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
She salutes Mal with her blazing sword (though he can't see it), and hurls herself at the unholy cobra.
"" flies from her lips.
HIT:
DAM:
The huge cat sits watching his Darkmaned partner for a few quick seconds. In all his travels, never had he run across someone like her. Not his former commander, nor the woman she assigned to order him around on this impossible mission, not even the demon woman who'd accompanied them so far. She mirrored his focus, his passion, his will to succeed... he would gladly stand against this or greater foes if it meant standing with her.
He felt he'd lived his life in preparation for moments like this. Moments of chaotic struggle and fire-blooded action. His fiery green eyes turned to regard the great, dangerous foe, and his lips peeled back in a snarl revealing powerful teeth like shortswords. Come, Darkmane! Little Sister! Let us see what this prey tastes of!
His roar mixes with Darkmane's battlecry, a harmony of rage and ferocity as he takes a few great strides and launches hiimself at the iron snake, teeth and claws searching for purchases to slash and hold on.
Talvyra's roar comes on the heels of her Brother, her leader. Instinct has taught her to use their numbers to encircle and overwhelm larger prey, and that's exactly what she does. Stalking wide, she tries to find an angle to flank and pounces, looking to bring the cold, hard thing down.
Mal and Tal time their snarling attacks - leaping with steel claws at the massive coiling avatar of death. The snake strikes with blinding speed. Talvyra hisses as a fang sinks into her haunches mid-jump, sending the battle cat spinning. Mal also feels the slash of an envenomed tooth... the unholy poison working through his system.
Undaunted, Mal completes his attack, rending the undead flesh with fangs and claws - raising a fountain of black blood. Beside him, Priyya slams into the abomination with the power of her Goddess lending strength to her blows that her flesh would be incapable of landing. Her holy blade shears deeply into the side of the building-sized Cobra. More of the vile black blood gouts across the Paladin - almost dimming her radiance. Priyya wipes it from her face with irritation... and staggers. For this is no normal blood.
It is the distillation of the thousands of thrice-damned souls sacrificed in this black cathedral, tainted with the dark desires of the corrupt deity that controls the Snake. It is a liquid unholy essence that sucks the life from anything it touches. Priyya staggers and rights herself, rallying the strength of her limbs.
Then the Snake flairs its hood and strikes. It sets its fangs against the Paladin and slashes its whip-like massive tail at the dire tiger rending its flesh. Mal dodges the flashing tail by a hair's breadth as Priyya falls beneath the sword-blade fangs, the poisoning overcoming even her holy defenses.
Bite:
DAM:
FORT DC:26 - CON 1/rnd for 6 rnds
SAVE:
Tal
Bite:
DAM:
FORT DC:26 - CON 1/rnd for 6 rnds
SAVE:
DAM:
M Fort:
DAM:
P Fort:
Bite:
DAM:
FORT DC:26 - CON 1/rnd for 6 rnds
SAVE:
~Mal~
Tail Whip:
DAM:
Priyya staggers to her feet and glances back at the succubus dragging the dwarf slowly towards the exit. They need more time.
Priyya commits herself to death and presses the attack, praying she doesn't disgrace the Surya-ka-Vahaak. Her blade becomes a weaving flash of sanctified steel. She shears away whole plates of the beast's belly armor and lunges into the rotting body cavity, trying to carve her way to the creature's unholy spine. As she pushes forward, she is struck by an overwhelming torrent of black blood.
Perfect Strike - 3 possible hits... If crit, confirm must be one of the other two:
HIT 1a:
HIT 1b:
HIT 1c:
DAM:
HIT 2:
DAM:
HIT 3:
DAM:
HIT 4:
DAM:
HIT 5:
CRIT?:
DAM:
TOTAL DAM: 240
Spurred on by Priyya's ferocity, the great black cat continues its attack.
Talvyra's roar continues as she flashes claws and teeth ineffectualy over the resilenct scales of the cold snake thing.
Mal races along the snake's body, savaging it with tooth and claw.
But for every slash - whether by claw or blade - the black blood takes it toll... draining the life from Mal and Priyya. Every blow that brings them closer to victory, draws them inexorably towards death... just as the poison in their blood does.
Mal DAM: CON
SAVE: ; MADE=0
Priyya DAM: CON
SAVE: ; MADE=0
Tal DAM: CON
SAVE: ; MADE=1
M DAM:
M Fort:
P DAM:
P Fort:
The snarling battle-cat savages the snake's flank brutally but comes away with a faceful of black death. She paws her muzzle trying to scrape away the vile soul-stealing liquid.
T DAM:
T Fort:
Never in the long unlife of the Cobra Avatar has it been challenged like this. Never in its millennial existence has it been wounded so deeply by so few opponents. Never has it danced so close to the brink of utter annihilation. A gnawing doubt about its assumed invincibility grows in its mind even as the small sliver of holiness, that cursed blade, works into its entrails.
In its pain and fear, the Avatar writhes and thrashes. Its massive tail lashes out, obliterating one of the massive central columns and sending a shower of boulder-sized masonry spinning across the Cathedral. Venom gouts from its fangs as the massive hood whips around trying to sweep aside these opponents who rend its flesh - inside and out. The 3 ton head crashes into another column, snapping it in half and raising a shower of ancient dust and debris. An ominous cracking begins as spiderwebs fissures - wide as a man is tall - race along the cathedral's vault. It begins to assume the appearance of a broken mosaic.
The distracted snake doesn't even consider the fleeing succubus dragging the dwarf out of the chapel. Lureene pushes the dwarf into the arms of her comrades in the tunnel and turns - bearing witness.
The writhing of the snake is like a tidal-wave of flesh that bears down on the heroes. Mal, the Dire Tiger, almost manages to leap over the whipping serpent body. His paws slip in the black blood however and his body is slammed by the undulating serpent into a column which cracks and tips. The capstone, roughly the size of an elephant, drops onto Mal as he leaps away from the column. Only determination allows him to claw himself free of the massive weight.
Even the dextrous Talvyra cannot outrun a 20' high wall of flesh. It rolls over and grinds her against the unyielding stone floor.
Priyya, inside the body, fairs only slightly better - the snake's form providing some shelter from the rain of masonry and the worst of the whipping body. Even still, the organs of the beast all but crush the life from the Paladin and her consciousness finds itself slipping away...
In the collapsing cathedral, a gong sounds. Battered as he is, Mal knows what it presages. When they first entered this benighted sepulchre, they set off an unholy trap. The gong struck and was followed by a wave of unholy energy which sucked the life from every living creature.
M Save:
P Save:
T Save: (evasion)
DAM
Reflex DC:22 for 1/2
SAVE:
It's almost cozy, getting crushed to death in the innards of a necromantic monstrosity... almost. Priyya's hand loosens on her sword as poison, the black blood, and death begin to take her. But then she feels the thrashing shiver of the creature and imagines that she hears Mal's familiar growl.
Swimming up from the depths of unconsciousness, she thinks:
If the cobra is still fighting, it means Mal is still fighting. And if Mal is still fighting, that means Tal is too. And if Mal and Tal are still in this fight... what am I doing here resting?
Priyya is almost glad for the crushing darkness. Good thing Mal didn't catch me napping - I'd REALLY be in trouble then.
The Paladin spends all that she has to clear enough room to wield her sword. She drives her blade towards what she hopes is the beast's undead heart.
Please, Sarenrae, grant me luck just once more.
Her blade strikes true but Priyya never sees the results of it as a rush of black blood ferries her to the land of the dead.
Perfect Strike - 3 possible hits... If crit, confirm must be one of the other two:
HIT 1a:
HIT 1b:
HIT 1c:
DAM:
P DAM:
P Fort:
Talvyra has followed Big Brother as long as she can remember. Through easy hunts and hard. In the back of her simple mind she knows this is the last hunt, but never does a pack-mate leave the alpha to die alone...
Through the pain, the fear, the desperation, she fights on, even as her limbs fail her.
Rage and desperation burn white-hot in Mal's heart and limbs as the giant snake-thing thrash the room to pieces, and the only thing keeping Mal from being crushed by the raining debris are two claws sunk deep into the cold hide of the giant beast. He can feel the fear and pain of his prey, but it is a fear and pain echoing through himself.
WILL. NOT. FAIL.
Never had Mal the hunter met his equal, and it was with mingling thrill and dread that he recognized it now. His life was slipping, but there was still blood in his veins and fire in his heart. So the mighty hunter roared his battle cry at this unliving serpent, expending the final reserves of his primal power on it even as the thing crushed the life from him.
The massive hunter rips into the snake, fangs and claws doing their deadly work. The Cobra-Avatar is failing; Mal senses it like the true predator he is. Even as his claws try to tear victory from the snake flesh, the black blood tries to steal the last of his strength. But Mal, whether through fate or fortitude, resists the siren call of a quick death. Locked in this death struggle, with a weakening prey, the Dire Tiger hangs on for all he is worth.
M DAM:
M Fort:
Talvyra gives the snake all she has but it isn't enough. The battle has taken its toll on the noble cat as more of the unholy blood and poison steal what little strength she has left. Sensing the end is close, Talvyra limps towards her brother over the undulating snake body.
Fight together - die together.
The gong fades... as the wave of unholy energy rolls down the length of the cathedral. The massive cats face it stoicly. Mal looks North and watches it roil towards them like a malevolent storm. But it isn't coming alone. The occult force shivers what remains of the weakened cathedral ceiling. Column by column and foot by foot the spiderweb mosaic shatters and an impenetrable wall of masonry, dust, and massive stone slabs slam into the floor trailing the wave of dark energy. Columns collapse and walls crack and tumble. Mal and Tal roar their defiance as the wave of energy and tons of stone crash down on them and their fallen comrade - a suitable tomb. An implacable warrior, Mal's greatest hope is that the cathedral's collapse crushes the damned snake as well.
Lureene can do nothing but watch from the relative safety of the tunnel as hundreds of tons of stone crush everything in the cathedral. The last image she sees, and recalls for many long years, is that of the giant black Dire Tiger standing on the writhing snake's back, roaring its fury as the blast of occult energy and its cloud of ruin hammers everything down. The blast throws her back and sends her senses spinning.
The succubus rises and looks through the cloud of dust. Half the tunnel is collapsed and the entrance to the cathedral - if the black temple even exists any longer - is entirely blocked with rubble. Grief registers slowly and sharply for her, like a knife draw across her flesh. The terse Druid, his little sister, and the acerbic Warrior-Priestess are gone. Lureene dusts herself off, the only thing she can do... there is still a mission to complete on Smuggler's Shiv and no time for mourning yet.
T DAM:
T Fort:
Mal DAM: CON
SAVE: ; MADE=0
Tal DAM: CON
SAVE: ; MADE=1
HEAL/DAM:
M Save:
T Save:
M Save:
T Save: (evasion)
Snake:
Blackness and quiet hold court. Twin princes reigning in their twilight kingdom.
For what has seemed an eternity Priyya has fought her way through nightmares so real they seemed memories… or were they memories so twisted they seemed nightmares? Her stunned mind struggles with the concept.
Smoky, shifting shadows of companions and adversaries clash against one another. She wields her patroness's white-hot blade alongside nearly-forgotten friends as red-eyed, tiny goblin demons sack a shadowy, rural town on a far-away coastline. The beach changes, growing bleak as nightmarish long-boats propelled by slave-driven oars crash onto cold white sands. Arrows streak from Priyya's bow, leaving shadow trails as they pierce the bellowing forms of towering, horned invaders. Then waves of dirty men with hungry eyes and leering lips crowd with poison-dipped blades before they dissipate into dark clouds in a black-blue sky through which Priyya chases a monstrous crimson wasp with the cruelly smiling face of a woman. On and on the nightmares rush, and through it all, the burning, steadfast, purifying light of Sarenrae guides Priyya's steps. Beside her treads Mal - in Priyya's nightmare-memories somehow being both a 7 foot savage elf and a great black hunting cat - his grim humor and savage claws carving a bloody path through their foes. His Little Sister Talvyra stalks in their wake, always seeking to defend… their distinctly feral faces in sharp contrast against dark bodies that fade to mist as they move.
As the onslaught of nightmare-memories continues, one remains the freshest… sharpest. A battle in a cave… or maybe it's a temple. Much of the memory is indistinct and blurry - like all the others - but some aspects are so sharp… so real… she can still smell the scents of blood, sweat, fear, and death. Hear the shouts, the roars. The giant snake is clear in the memory. Huge. Deadly. Evil. Its poisonous fangs scarring metal, its implacable scales squeezing. Priyya's other companions fade to background as she, Mal and Tal rush for one final stand. The monster waits, fangs bared in a terrible grin. Every moment of the epic struggle is etched in slow motion memory, right up to the last. Flesh and muscle tears, bones break, and her defiant shout is lost as the nightmare-dream shatters. Every emotion and sensation in Priyya's being explode and then rush back in and around Priyya as she falls through nothingness, the fragments of nightmares and memories falling with her.
The roar of emotion and sensation quiet to a soft white noise… the falling sensation ceases… the dreams and nightmares slow to a soft drift, leaves falling in a white oblivion.
As they settle around Priyya, her mind slowly opens up to her surroundings. The static wash of white noise resolves into the slow rhythmic sounds of waves. A warm heat expands out from her mind, bleeding to the skin of her chest, her shoulders, her face. It is somehow a comforting heat, but in the back of her still-fuzzy mind, she registers that it's also a dangerous heat… a killing heat.
The all-encompassing white that flooded her eyes recedes, dissolving into a long beach of white sand onto which crashes beautiful, clear blue waves. Other details begin to emerge. The sand on the tender skin of her face. Hot. Damp. Grainy. The gentle pull of water on her legs and tattered boots. The familiar feel of her weapon clenched in her white-knuckled grip, fingers cramped and unmoving as stone around the soft leather of her blade's grip. As her muscles remember their strength, she pushes herself up from the sand, the world righting from its previously perpendicular orientation. The border between water and sand extend as far in either direction as she can see, in a nearly un-broken if never quite stationary line of surf. She looks out into the water only to see smooth blue horizon beyond the endless waves. A look in the other direction doesn't reveal much more. For one hundred steps up the beach the white sand rises gently then quickly resolves into a wall of equally white but towering sand dunes. There are no signs of people, animals, or plants… Priyya struggles with her foggy mind to remember if she's ever seen something so perfectly pristine… so lifeless.
For a few breaths, every movement is a struggle, her body protests with the remembered pain of the snake nightmare... both hers and Mal's.
MAL!
She spins around searching for him, and the world reels dangerously, her body still remembering how to move. Ten feet away, he lies face-down in a small crater, his gear scattered around him as if he were dropped from a great height, Talvyra lying nearly motionless near his booted foot. He doesn't move.... except to breathe. A slow, rhythmic breathing… as if asleep.
His usually well cared-for armor and long coat look to be in the same ravaged condition as her own gear. But where hers are tattered, partially dissolved, and drenched in blood and other black, oily fluids, his are ripped and dust-covered. For a few seconds she had feared him dead, a fear that had left her with a cold empty feeling in the core of her. But as she watched his breath become more and more steady, the cold is slowly but surely replaced by a spreading warmth.
Priyya lurches to her knees as Mal begins to stir. His green eyes flutter open, searching the beach before latching onto Priyya's face as he coughs.
"Darkmane..." he says between deep breaths, "I thought..... failed..." He shakes his head weakly, closing his eyes as he tries to clear his mind, and one clawed hand goes to where two great but bloodless rends mar his armor. His claw then stretches out partially towards Priyya, landing on the white sands between them, "I... thought I died... thought I left..." His green eyes open once more, struggling to focus on Priyya's face again, though his breaths become more even, "Are you alright?" His bloodless lips turn up in a weak grin, "You look like a three-day-old kill."
Priyya musters a pained smile, "You really know how to charm the ladies, Mal. I'm OK... though I'll be damned if I know how we got here."
She looks down at her clothes, stained with blood along with snake gore and evil residue. Her nose wrinkles, "Ugh!" Without concern for propriety or her audience, the small Paladin strips off all her equipment and clothing. Thinking better of it. She straps her swordbelt around her bare hips and then carries the pile of foul clothing down to the water. She washes the gore and filth from body, voluminous hair, and clothes. Mal notes her uniformly brown, muscular body.
As she washes, Priyya watches her surroundings - both for dangers and any clue as to where they might be and what direction to head in...
Struggling up on to his elbows, Mal tries to take a look around but finds it difficult when Priyya's clothes slide off. "Or even where here is. Though I'm suddenly finding it hard to care all that much." With monumental effort he tears his green eyes off her body, "Last I remember was that damn snake-thing. Like a horrible dream." His eyes take one long sweep up and down the coast, "One thing I do know… this doesn't look like the beaches of the Shiv. Or any other beach I can remember, actually."
.
Mechanically, as of right now, it's just a constant Status effect which additionally allows Cure spells to be transferred as though the two characters were touching. :)
Priyya takes in the area around her in one long sweeping look. All she sees is beautiful, unbroken nothingness. No animals. No clouds. No plants. Nothing in sight. And aside from the sounds of Mal and those she makes in the water, all she hears is the constant wash and roll of surf. It'd be beautiful if it weren't so… empty.
As she washes herself in the warm saltwater, she's frustrated to notice that while the pain slowly subsides, a deep ache and weariness sets in.
Priyya stretches - her cleaning done. This weary feeling is unusual and slightly amusing. She carries her clothes back up the beach and spreads them out to dry. She sits down heavily on the sand next to Mal, listening to his thoughts... and watching where his eyes are drawn to on her form.
She points to the smile on her face, "I'm up here, Mal. But I appreciate the compliment." She lies back on the sand, drying quickly in the heat. "I'm tired. The damnable part of it is - if I had even a fragment of divine energy left in me - I could dispel this fatigue. As it stands, we'll have to bear it."
Priyya soaks in the sun for awhile, hoping it will restore her energy somewhat. After a time, she rolls onto her belly and continues her thoughts, "I have no idea where we are either... but I think we might be on the edge of the sun's anvil. This heat reminds me of home. Those dunes behind us might lead to nothing but more of the same."
She throws her hair to one side, allowing her back to bake in the sun. Mal notices something he hadn't before. A long, complicated, vaguely tribal, entwined, and pointed black tattoo starts within her hairline - emerging and separating from the black mane as it winds across her ear and travels closely around and across her right eye - ending in a few points. It looks most like an abstract set of vines with bladed thorns.
Priyya sighs in the heat, then duty calls. She runs a hand across her clothes and finds them acceptably dry. Tired, she sits up and dresses. She points to a high dune. "I'm heading over there to see what's around. If we're lucky - it won't be more desert."
The desert-dwelling Paladin strides adeptly across the sand. She gets about halfway to her goal dune when she considers something else Mal said. She stops and turns. "You said our battle with the snake was like a dream... and yet I feel sure it was real. Which makes this what? Reality? Or a dream we just haven't woken from and therefore it feels more real? All I can tell you is my training led me to expect something very different from the afterlife." She turns back to the dune and continues on, considering the matter further.
Mal's eyes never leave Priyya's body, even when she calls him on it. "I've spent some time in a few deserts myself, but none like this." Finally his eyes come up and stop on her face. Whatever he was about to say dies on his lips, replaced as a confused look appears. "Um… Darkmane. You have something…" He finishes the thought by tracing one claw along the pattern. He looks around, only now realizing that his backpack is apparently on some other beach far, far away. "Damn… um… Ever resourceful, Mal scoops a shallow pit in the sand then mutters a few of his primal power words. Clear, reflective water fills the shallow pool from the bottom up, enough for Priyya to use as a mirror.
As she looks at herself in the reflective water, seeing the dark marks on her skin for the first time, Mal begins checking his gear with a practiced efficiency. With a concerned look at her face every few seconds, he meticulously pulls out all of his remaining weapons and gear, checking every ding, scratch, or notch… ending by stripping off his armor and vest.
As he runs his hands over the surface of his dragon-scale breastplate, rubbing spit into some pits to check their severity, Priyya notices something. Running from the bottom lobeless point of his right ear, down his neck and spreading onto the first three or four inches of his wide shoulders and chest is a series of scars that look exactly like her mysterious mark.
Mal's eyes never leave Priyya's body, even when she calls him on it.
Mal's questing eyes cross her body and note the pink tinge beneath the tan skin spreading rapidly across her chest. Hmm... there must be a cool wind blowing across her skin because... oh.
Finally his eyes come up and stop on her face.
Flushed from the intensity of his scrutiny, Priyya wishes she was just a shade less fatigued. A quiet beach, rolling surf, seeming endless privacy, no yammering women filling the air with chatter, and a cut athlete of a man who looked at her like she was the best and only item on the menu. Maybe this IS my afterlife 'paradise'?
The thought is quickly put aside as Mal calls her attention to the tattoo on her face. She curls her body around the depression and examines her face in the conjured pool of water, pulling her hair back to see the full extent of it. "Well... Hells... it seems someone was drawing on my face while I was asleep." Darkmane runs an almond-skinned hand over the extent of Mal's similar scars, in part to draw his attention to them and (if she were being honest) as an excuse to touch him. "Looks like you've got the same artist. But he ran out of ink and settled for using a knife instead."
She leans on a single elbow, on her side, and looks at Mal's scars and then examines her face in the pool again. "This look is growing on me. What do you think? Kinda sexy, right?"
...ending by stripping off his armor and vest.
Priyya watches briefly, a smile playing across her lips as illicit ideas play idly in her mind. She offers encouragement, "Don't stop on my account. You still have some armor and clothing left." She gives him a wink that says she is mostly kidding.
One hour later finds Priyya standing at the top of the first bleach-white sand dune, still wrapping her sun-heated clothes around her body. The past hour's activities have replaced her hollow fatigue with a bone-deep exhaustion . She can't help think that it's not altogether an unpleasant exhaustion.
Mal, still sprawling on the beach where she left him, yells up at her, "I guess if I'm going to die on some remote desert beach, this is the way to do it." His stomach cuts off his observation with a growl as ferocious as one of his battle cries. "Could use some food, though," he mutters as he rolls to his feet, headed to the water to rinse off his own clothes and gear.
Her almond eyes find what she expected, if not for what she hoped. Like the blue waves that stretch to the horizon to her east, to her west stretches an unbroken sea of more bone-white sand dunes. She's struck by a near-overwhelming sense of insignificance, but it passes as she thinks back on their earlier conversation. She stops and turns. "You said our battle with the snake was like a dream... and yet I feel sure it was real. Which makes this what? Reality? Or a dream we just haven't woken from and therefore it feels more real? All I can tell you is my training led me to expect something very different from the afterlife." She turns back to the dune and continues on, considering the matter further.
Mal answers while he digs through his combat kit, looking for his rations. "Doesn't feel like I'm dead." Finding what he's searching for, he stands up, unwrapping three portions of dried trail-meats. One goes to Talvyra as he heads towards Priyya, climbing the dune in just his pants.
When he reaches her, he puts one big strip of dried meat in her hand, his eyes tracing the path her own had minutes before. "I don't recognize these sands. It may be your Sun's Anvil." He ponders the dunes as he chews, "Though I will say there is definitely something unnatural about this place. I can't put my finger on it, but it's… just… dead." He shrugs, "Or dead seeming, anyway. I've never seen a place that didn't have anything living."
Another few minutes stretch on with the two of them simply watching the sand. Talvyra, who seems to constantly be growing and now the size of most horses, comes to join them. She seems ambivalent to their surroundings, more interested in nuzzling up against Priyya's side. Mal comes out of his reverie, finger idly tracing his new scars. When he speaks, he puts words to something that had been nagging at Priyya's mind since their 'activities'. "While I enjoyed our… play… the last time. This time felt different." Green eyes meet almond for a breath before he looks down, obviously still somewhat uncomfortable with the direction their relationship has taken, "I could feel you. Well… feel you in here." He touches his head. "Your emotions. Your passion. And your… um… sensations."