[Liem knows even before he's pulled close enough to strike at the creature's glowing heart that it will be the death of him. He's reminded viscerally of the abandoned slaughterhouse in Yanmass, the swarm of rot-fed worms that had spilled out of one of the rooms within to wash in a writhing tide against everyone in its path. The sensation of being surrounded and invaded is similar enough to make his gorge rise with a lurch as vines slither over skin and burrow in squirming, white-hot flashes of pain into the flesh beneath.
Only his determination to take the creature with him lets him choke back the bitter taste at the back of his throat, lets him make that last wild strike at the beast as roots swallow him whole. He feels bone crunch against his pommel, tastes his own blood as the shock of impact jars his shard in his chest. Then the roots pull him under and with a cry his world becomes a sea of twisting, stabbing tendrils.
Briefly, blackness overtakes him. He comes to in a bed of soft, slithery rot, and this time he's unable to stop the surge of nausea as he struggles onto all fours and feels stringy remains tug and slip from the wounds in his punctured flesh. He heaves weakly into the mess, gasping as his limbs tremble beneath him, and manages to crawl halfway out of the muck before dizziness claims him again and he collapses onto the stained grass.
There is no sign of the creature anymore, but neither can he see its fallen shard from where he lies. Something films his vision, dripping down his face black and stinging of salt, and his body feels cold and leaden. He can barely muster the fortitude to turn his head in order to seek out the woman who came here with him.]
Hhhh, [he mutters through numbed lips.] H'me.
[Did they do it? Does the stillness and the dark mean the creature is dead—or did it flee back into the woods, taking the lost shard with it? Even wondering hurts, somehow. He wishes he could at least see.]
cw: flesh-burrowing creatures, vomiting
Only his determination to take the creature with him lets him choke back the bitter taste at the back of his throat, lets him make that last wild strike at the beast as roots swallow him whole. He feels bone crunch against his pommel, tastes his own blood as the shock of impact jars his shard in his chest. Then the roots pull him under and with a cry his world becomes a sea of twisting, stabbing tendrils.
Briefly, blackness overtakes him. He comes to in a bed of soft, slithery rot, and this time he's unable to stop the surge of nausea as he struggles onto all fours and feels stringy remains tug and slip from the wounds in his punctured flesh. He heaves weakly into the mess, gasping as his limbs tremble beneath him, and manages to crawl halfway out of the muck before dizziness claims him again and he collapses onto the stained grass.
There is no sign of the creature anymore, but neither can he see its fallen shard from where he lies. Something films his vision, dripping down his face black and stinging of salt, and his body feels cold and leaden. He can barely muster the fortitude to turn his head in order to seek out the woman who came here with him.]
Hhhh, [he mutters through numbed lips.] H'me.
[Did they do it? Does the stillness and the dark mean the creature is dead—or did it flee back into the woods, taking the lost shard with it? Even wondering hurts, somehow. He wishes he could at least see.]
H'yame…?