Polo and Alpha :D]] Highwayman

Sathina was hesitant at first, but she was cold enough to let Gary convince her - so she curled up beside him, absentmindedly snuggling up against him, and burying her face in his furry chest. Shivers still shook her body at regular intervals, but she clung gratefully to Gary - mumbling quiet words of thanks every so often as the freezing night bled on.

His heart pounded slow and strong in his chest and one arm managed to snake around her to keep her warmer. But then he looked up with his frozen eyes and saw her cloak and thought that if he used that it would aid in keeping the warmth around her. He reached up and took it in his human like paws and pulled it up and over him and her. He wanted to bring up his body temperature but was afraid that it might be too hot for her.

When she felt the extra warmth of the cloak fall over her, Sathina felt an unexpected rush of affection for the man- Could he be considered a man in this form...? - the thing curled around her. Her heart broke rhythm to thump a staccato beat for a moment - then it quietened, but not before she had slipped her hands gently around his arm, and pulled it close, holding it tightly to her so that she could feel his strong grip around her. She absentmindedly unravelled his fist, and bent her head to kiss his fingertips.

He snapped out of his trance and looked down at her and smiled. He managed to angle his head down to look at her in her eyes and he moved his hand up gently touching the side of her face with warm paws. Her skin felt like ice under his fiery hot hands. He wished he could change back but with the cold it would risk so much letting her freeze. He looked at her though with the same emotion and feelings he had for her from the beginning and a sweet smile stretched his lips.

When Sathina felt the soft, paw-like hand against her cheek, she allowed her head to be guided slightly so he silver eyes fixed on Gary's. She held his gaze for a moment - but even in a wolf's eyes - the warmth and affection held there frightened her, and she was forced to look away - releasing his arm, though still staying close to his warm chest.
She couldn't do this... She couldn't let his feelings get to her. It was just too risky...

He smiled at her again knowing that this would soon wear off. "Go to sleep Sathina." He whispered and laid down agin his arm remaining close to her but limp enough for her to use it as extra heat. He laid his head down where it was before and stared at the embers, his own silent lullaby and soon his eyes grew heavy and he couldnt stay awake anymore now and finally he too fell into a slumber

"Don't leave me..." Was the last sleepy comment that Sathina mumbled before she obeyed Gary's command, slipping off into a peaceful slumber, and clinging close to her dear friend beside her.
Then, sometime during the night, Sathina was woken by a muffled sound. She jerked awake, squirming quickly out of Gary's arms, and lunging instinctively for Ferenithe.
"So I've found you at last, Sathina." Came a voice from the shadows. It seemed to have no substance... Certainly, it was neither male nor female, young nor old... It was not even human. It was just a disembodied voice composed of nameless sounds that somehow formed coherent words.
To Sathina, it was the most frightening voice she knew. "Farce..." She gasped, and the creature laughed at the mention of it's name, gliding slowly toward her.
It had form, but what its form was, it was impossible to say. Somewhere between sludge and smoke, it was of a black darker than night - and though it had no distinguishable form or features, it was easily recognisable, and each action it made was somehow crystal clear to see.
"I'll kill you!" She hissed, but even as her fingers closed around Ferenithe's handle, she knew it was no use. The dead thing had her sword pinned beneath one indistinguishable foot. "Alright Farce..." She murmured quietly, raising her hands and tiptoeing backwards, doing her best not to wake Gary.
"You got me, okay? You win. Now let's take this outside..."

"I wont" He said before falling to sleep and as the night crawled on he felt like he was being watched. But at the feeling of movement his ear flickered at the sound of a voice. He remained still and his eyes shot open. He knew a presence was there and it had woke Sathina from her sleep. A low rumble rose from his chest as a growl. His claws dug into the stone as he tensed up and he rose to find this black mass encroaching on Sathina and his hair bristled and stood up as he took a defensive stance on all fours in front of her. Not saying one human word his teeth bared and he really looked like a monster. This was instinct talking now. Not sense.

"Gary, no!" Sathina exclaimed, her voice aflame with sudden anger.
"What's this, Sathina...?" The monster called Farce cooed in its vile voice, "You got yourself a little pet, huh? Or is he your lover...?" Farce trailed off the a sound that might have been a laugh, though sounded more like a combination of fingernails on a chalkboard, and downing kittens.
"Didn't your father warn you about such things, Sathina? Here I thought you were smarter than this..."

Sathina was suspiciously silent through all this, and when she finally made a sound, it was not speech - but a feral hiss. Her white hair was slowly dying itself an inky black, and her eyes were clouding over. Silky shadows - like tendrils of smoke - rose from the seal on her navel as it began attempting to unfurl. Sathina's form became indistinct, almost like the creature before her, until it was uncertain whether or not she was even real.
"Gary... Ferenithe..." Sathina managed in a pained hiss. "Fast."
She could manage no more than those three words - so all she could do was trust that Gary would figure out her cryptic hints, and in time...
Throwing caution to the winds, Sathina flung herself at Farce, and the two shadow creatures mingled into a cruel battle - Sathina's body merging with her soul as she twisted and distorted unboned limbs in a repulsive wrestle with the thick, smoky mass that was her enemy.
In the scuffle, the things's foot slipped from Ferenithe's shiny blade - but already, Sathina was starting to lose control... Becoming more and more like that which she battled, until the two seemed nearly to merge.

He snapped once before listening to the beast in front of him. Then his ears flickered back to Sathina when she had asked for her sword that she had made reference to a few times. Slowly as she went around him then flung herself at the monster did he dive for the sword passing it to her when she had the chance and even if he could do nothing he stood his ground. Wishing dearly that he could do something to help

Seeing the blade whirling through the air toward her, Sathina leaped up and caught it, swinging it down into the thick mass of shadow before her. Farce released ungodly wail, and his smooth smoky form suddenly became jagged and bristly as he squirmed away from her. His pain and fury expressed themselves in a sound of indescribable horror, and Sathina nearly dropped her sword through trying to cover her ears.
Thankfully, the injured Farce was not waiting around to be banished into death, so he whipped around - and the cloud of darkness flooded from the cave.
Yet still, Sathina did not resume her usual form. For the most part, she could be described as human - but the outlines of her form flickered, and dissolved into smoky sludge in places.
Thick red blood was pooling on the ground - evidence that part of Sathina's indistinct body had been merged with Farce's when she had attacked him. But as of yet, she was too far from human to tell where she had been hurt.
And she was not getting any more human...
For a moment she stood, breathing heavily, then Ferenithe dropped from her hand and she fell back hard against the wall of the cave, a deathly, inhuman scream erupting from her lips. It was like listening to something between the scream of a banshee, and the song of the siren. Somehow beautiful, painful and horrible all at once - yet always giving a distinct aura of danger. Its pitch was such that the rock wall behind her groaned and cracked, and the roof began to shake, showering dust down on top of her.

The seal was coming undone. From Sathina's label, limbs of glowing light were escaping - perfectly formed, yet with no form at all - sculpted from a light that somehow seemed darker than darkness...
Sathina doubled over and grabbed her stomach as though trying to force the thing back in. Her hands began blistering and smouldering as the spirit burned away her skin, but Sathina didn't move her hands away. She collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony - her hair flashing from white, to black, to white again so quickly it was like an optical illusion.
Finally, Sathina managed to get her senses in order, and saw Gary beside her. In a lightning-quick movement, she grabbed his ankle - blood pouring freely from her now skinless palm, staining Gary's foot within moments. "Wa...ter..." She gasped through the agonizing scream, which did not even break for speech.

Yes... She needed water... Running water. She wasn't strong enough to contain the spirit on its own. And if it broke loose... Her death would be by far the least of her problems.

Gary couldnt believe what he was seeing..and watching unfold in front of him. The screams felt like knives in his sensitive ears and he too let out a yelp. By the end of it he was still in shock and when he felt her hand grab his ankle he jumped slightly and felt the warm blood soaking into his fur. Hearing her beg for water. "Sathina hang on tight waters coming" He said and did something that would drain him of every ounce of energy and probably knock him out cold. He summoned the river close by and soon a large stream of water rushed in front of them in front of the cave washing over her to sooth what seemed to him like she was burning.

Sathina felt the spirit within her recoil at the presence of the water, and the eerie wail that it was forcing through her lips suddenly doubled in intensity, as it voiced its rage and agony without the joy or possible freedom that it had felt before. The purity of the rushing water was too much for the evil thing to bear, and as the wave struck Sathina in the midriff with the force of a tsunami, the wailing ceased. The beast was forced back into it's magical cage, and Sathina - white haired and solid again now - was slammed back into the wall of the cave so hard that her teeth clacked together.
When the water flooded out again, taking the pressure off her, she collapsed to her hands and knees, and spat out a mouthful of blood from where she had bitten her tongue a moment before.
"Th-thank... You..." She managed shakily - still consumed by the uncomfortable feeling of the beast sealed within her rattling the bars of its metaphorical cage in desperation to escape.

Gary stood there as the water began to retreat back to the river and his legs were like jello. He wobbled for a moment before falling to the stone ground like a boulder with his body weight crashing down. "You're..we..welcome" He whispered weakly and looked up at her his eyes frozen from the ice cold wind hitting them. But he wasnt regretting what he did, just putting up with the consequences. Though it wasnt long before his accelerated healing kicked in and his energy level slowly crawled back to normal.

Sathina gulped and crawled over to Gary, not trusting herself to stand just yet. "Are you okay...?" She asked in an unsteady voice, laying her hand on his furry forehead, then wincing and pulling it back - feeling her skinless palms for the first time. She drew in a sharp gasp of breath, closed her hand, and brought it to her chest before she could see it. She feared that if she could see how badly injured she was - the shock combined with the cold could stop her heart.
It was a good thing she hadn't noticed the three missing fingers on her left hand... Her unintentional sacrifice to banish Farce.
"Gary?" She whimpered quietly, frightened by how weak he looked. Overuse of magic could kill - she had seen it happen... She didn't want Gary to die.

He looked up at her hands and sighed hot tears welling in his eyes. He sighed softly and gently nuzzled her side and laid his head gently on her lap pulling his legs up and curled up into a ball. Finally regaining his strength enough to speak. "Do your hands heal?" He asked quietly concentrating now on his body heat.

Sathina uttered a shaky sigh of relief when Gary lifted his head onto her lap. She allowed herself to relax, and slumped down slightly - curling around his furry form.
In response to his question, she gulped and bit her lip. "In time... Maybe." She muttered - resisting the urge to look at her hands only with great effort. "How bad are they?" She asked gruffly, making a challenging attempt at bravery.
She was not the sort to break down...
Besides, from the looks of things, Gary had the tears covered already.
A fond smile crept unbidden onto her face, and lingered there as she gazed down at Gary's head in her lap.

"Pretty bad" He said gently and sighed. "You want me to wrap them? Its not good to let the cold get to them like this" He said and sat up propping up on one hand his head still low but his eyes meeting hers. Within minutes though he had phased back to his human form and the blood from her hands soaked into his boots around his ankle. "I have some cloth that will keep it clean and warmer." He added gently shaking his hair out.

"Mm, thanks." Sathina mumbled with a nod, smiling just slightly, "I'd do it myself, but I don't have enough hands..." She joked feebly, managing just a slight hint of humour.
She offered her hands to Gary to wrap, looking at them for the first time.
There was little left of her left hand, she noted with a dull sort of detachment. Her last three fingers had been sliced clean off by the keen blade of Ferenithe, and were probably lying soaked in blood somewhere in this dingy cave. That thought brought a brief wave of nausea over her, but she forced down the bile in her throat, and turned her hands over to examine the palms.
The edges of the wounds were still smouldering - bubbles forming under what was left of her skin as though it had been dipped in a cauldron of boiling acid. Cooked flesh had slid from her bones - exposing flashes of gory whiteness in between sinuous muscles, throbbing veins and sprinklings of skin. She flexed her fingers, and watched her own muscles contract shakily - twitching with the effort of moving through the pain - which her adrenalin was still partly blocking out. Blood flooded from the raw wounds with her movement, combining with some foul-smelling clear liquid that was slowly leaking from the burned skin.
"Check it, you can see my bones!" She pointed out with a grin. "How cool is that? I've got skeleton hands..." She laughed in amusement - then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she promptly fainted - head hitting the hard stone floor with a dull 'thunk'.

Gary sat there and chuckled at some of her humor and began wrapping her one hand that she wasnt playing with. He's seen worse injuries though the host was dead, not living. This was different though. Much different. When she started going loopy like that he knew what was coming. With that knowledge he put a bundled up coat under her head before it hit the ground to save from further injury. He just sat there and shook his head for a moment. "I swear i will never understand magic" He said and continued to clean and bandage her up washing away the dirt and infection with crisp clean water from his own making. Sure he didnt have a healing power, but the elements always work in his favor. Using his earth power he drew all the dirt and earthy particles out of the wounds, water to clean them and air to dry them as well as cool air to sooth them. Once he was finished he laid a blanket over her still body and rested her head on his lap as he leaned against Alair's side.

Sathina came around some time later to find her hands cleaned and bandaged. They were starting to hurt now that the adrenaline had worn off, but she was sure they would have been hurting a lot more without Gary's help.
Speaking of Gary... Where was he?
She sat up with a grunt and looked around her, but she didn't see him anywhere. "Gar-" She began, but when she jerked her head around to look behind her, she suddenly realised that she had been lying in his lap all along. "I thought I lost you!" She exclaimed with a laugh, shifting around to face him. "Thanks for fixing my hands." She raised them with a smile, and wiggled her fingers to demonstrate. "Now I don't look like a skeleton any more - I look more like a mummy. Just as dead, but way creepier."
She offered a slightly hopeful smile.
She was waiting... Waiting for Gary to ask the obvious question: What had happened, and more importantly, what the Hell was she?
She took it as a mark of the strength of their friendship that he hadn't run off on her after seeing that. As for the fact that he had not questioned her about it yet... Well, she didn't even know what to put that down to. Nobody was that nice.

"Silly girl." He smiled and shook his head. "Nah mummies complain all the time and sleep all day. You're more like a zombie" He said with a smile and chuckled looking down at her hands. "I consider you pretty lucky though, see if anything like that happened to me i wouldnt have anyone. I'd have to do it on my own." He said softly. "But now that we have some time, why dont you tell me about your powers? They seem like they are pretty extraordinary in more ways than one" He chuckled

"Yeah..." She mumbled, staring down at her hands thoughtfully. "I'm lucky you were here. I've been doing this on my own for years, but... I've never been hurt this badly." She shuddered slightly, and tucked her bandaged hands under her arms to keep them warm. "Looks like you'll be wielding Ferenithe for a while." She concluded, smiling sadly.

"But now that we have some time, why dont you tell me about your powers? They seem like they are pretty extraordinary in more ways than one"
At these words, Sathina's head jerked up, and she stared solemnly at Gary. She was silent a moment, then answered honestly, "I don't have any powers..."

"Okay so was it like a magician's slip of the hand? Explain it to me. I mean im not going to judge you Sathina. We're all magic here. It wont make a difference. It just helps me understand you more." He said with a smile and wrapped the blanket around her and him once more to keep the body heat in on this cold night. "I mean That and i also would like to know what to do with this sword you have." He said with a smile

"I'm not magic." Sathina insisted with a bitterly amused snort. "But if you must have an explanation..." She turned away, staring vaguely toward the cave entrance, and wrapping the cloak tighter around her. "My father was a Necromancer - and as you probably know, these powers are passed down from generation to generation. It's not the sort of magic any mage can learn... But when I was a baby, my Necromancy abilities were sealed..."She drew in a deep breath, then stated her explanation - quickly, as though it burned her tongue. "I doubt you'd remember, but you must have heard stories, of the Greater Dead spirit, Ziogorn. If you haven't heard, I won't bore you with the tales - all you need to know is that havoc followed in its wake wherever it went, and it reaped more lives than anybody cared to count. Finally, it met its match in my father - but even he was not a powerful enough Necromancer to send Ziogorn back beyond the final gate of Death, so he sealed the spirit. He sealed it inside of me." Sathina's tone went dull now, as though she was waiting for Gary to shove her away in repulsion, and run for his life - or perhaps even attack her. "So that's the story." She concluded in a bored, bitter tone. "My powers were caught up in the seal - so now I'm just an ordinary woman, hunted by both the dead and the living, and with Ziogorn leaping at every chance of escape he gets.
That's why Farce was here just now. He was trying to release my seal... He almost succeeded, too. We were lucky..." She trailed off, then shrugged and shifted to Gary's next question.
"Ferenith is a Necromancer's blad, imbued with Necromaner's magic. It is one of the few weapons that can kill what is already dead. You need only wield it as a normal sword, until my hands have healed enough that I can handle it again."