Twelve days have passed since Lauryn was rechristened by the tyr. The tyr's people found a new home for her: they have sent her and Skotonys back to Osaon. Osaon has several advantages: the people of the village already know of her power and know that she can be useful, so they are less likely to be panicky or hostile to her. The Yemenos killed more villagers than they destroyed buildings, so there was extra space there for her.
From Lauryn's personal perspective, it means she gets to see Ython again. He's still alarmingly weak, but his spirits are better and the chirugeon treating him is optimistic that he will survive.
Their new home was prepared for their arrival, but it's an old building in need of further care and repair, even so. It doesn't have internal plumbing like the homes of Theolisis, and the best engineers in Osaon are working to repair their aquaduct after the attack. The human woman that they saved from slaughter by the Yemenos comes to their house to welcome them, and spends several hours cleaning and mending. Later, Skotonys hires her as a servant for the household. It's a good thing, because even in Osaon, few are willing to work in the same household with the thirys prodotis. Lauryn learns the woman's name is Polon Kythis. For reasons that aren't quite clear to Lauryn, at Kythis's insistence Lauryn and Skotonys both call her by her given name, Kythis. Skotonys seems to think this is proper enough, but everyone else around them calls her Ria Polon. The boy they rescued isn't her son, but her nephew. Kythis had been living with her parents and her brother's family, but all of them save Kythis and h
The household has two other servants -- a cook and a maid -- but Lauryn rarely sees either of them. Kythis brings her meals and tends to her clothing. They've many fewer servants than Lauryn was used to in her home in Rephidim, or in the kyria's household in Theolisis, but they don't have as many people, either. It's just Lauryn, Skotonys, and the tutor they brought from Theolisis, Ria Wisa.
Since meeting the afentis, Lauryn has spent most of her time with Ria Wisa, learning Laosian, Laosian history, and math. Wisa is content with Lauryn's understanding of addition, subtraction, and multiplication, but she is determined to broaden her grasp on division. They've spent many hours going over fractions, percentages, and long division. Studying grammar, vocabulary and history is a relief after that, even if Wisa has an obsession with making Lauryn memorize dates and locations.
In all of this time -- nineteen days now -- Lauryn has done nothing to train her isityros. Nothing, that is, except hold them back from manifesting. As it turns out, that's a substantial effort in itself. Lauryn can often feel them behind her eyes, a pressure that she's holding back from manifestation. At times it feels overwhelming, making her head throb painfully and concentration impossible. Wisa often chides her for inattention, and Lauryn is increasingly irritable despite her best efforts.
Lauryn sits in her little attic room in Rephidim, surrounded by numbers. They circle and march around her, resolving into equations and demanding solutions. "What am I divided by 95?" 6120 demands of her, standing shouder-to-shoulder beside 95 with only the Laosian division symbol to separate them.
Behind her, 7 pokes her in the back with its pointy head. "Simplify me!" it demands, standing atop a 49 in the position of a Laosian fraction.
"Ooogh," is Lauryn's answer to all the monsterously mathmatic questions. She watches the numbers march by in a bewilering parade, rubbing her eyes again to make sure they're really there. She pauses, ears going askew, as she eyes the walls past the numbers. Something is off, but she can't quite put a finger on it. Talking to numbers seems perfectly alright, however.
95 announces in her stepmother's voice, "Idiot! She doesn't know. She doesn't know anything. Useless little fool."
6120 rearranges itself with 49 to make 4916 divided by 20. "Even someone as stupid as you can do a problem this simple," it demands. "Solve me."
"No!" the 7 tries to get the 49 back out of the problem. "She has to simplify me still!"
"Solve yourself," Lauryn grumps, grabbing her nearby pillow and putting it over her head. She flops back on her bed, staring at the underside of the pillow and finding that it, too, seems a bit out of place. She puzzles as it, finging it hard to concentrate on just what about her pillow is unusual -- if only the talking mathmatics problems would quiet down!
The numbers crowd around her, and start poking and prodding her. Numbers come out of her pillor and tangle in her hair. "You can't sleep! You have work to do! SOLVE US! SOLVE US!" 4916 jumps up and down on her abdomen and legs, each leap making her muscles hurt and her stomach cramp.
She isn't sure when exactly, but she knows she's been putting up with this nonsense for quite some time now; and now she's mad. Pushing her pillow from her face, she sits up. It occurs to her now, that she can actually do something about this. "Of course," she murmurs. She reaches under her bed, rummaging aound for ... monsters. "I always keep them under my bed, come, come!" Doesn't everyone keep their monsters under the bed. "You just wait numbers, I have a lesson for you." It strikes her she has another weapon as well, so she pauses to reach in to her ear and pull out: letters -- Vetyros! -- which she swings about as she resumes rummaging.
A vicious, squid-like monster with hypodermic needles at the ends of its tentacles stabs her in the hand as she's rummaging under the bed. Undaunted, she pulls it out and swings it at the nearest group of numbers. Its needles plunge into the 7 and the 49, and they shrink into 1/7th instead. Vetyros chases the numbers into a rows, ordered from 0 to 9, front to back, one column after another. But Lauryn's hand aches where the squid-monster's needle is sunk in. Blood starts to seep out from her arm, staining her fur in a pattern of ... numbers.
"Ria Vetyros?" a male voice calls. Who is Ria Vetyros?
"What?!" It's a irritated, busy sort of scream. "I'm busy with numbers!" She pops her sore hand in to her muzzle, and glares at the numbers around her. At least she managed to order and simplify. Now if only there were a sign to maim and destroy. Isn't there? She thinks it must look like a plus side but ... bloodier. "95 maimed by 49!"
"I'm not maiming them!" the 4 and the 9 shout from one row, while the 9 and the 5 in another row edge out of position. Vetyros looms over the 4 and 9, and they band together and turn to assault the 95. 95 runs. The squid-thing stabs at Lauryn's arm, torso, and face with its sharp needles. Something else is squirming out from under the bed.
The door slides open (slides? not swings?). A fox man with a drawn sword stands in the opening. He frowns at the scene, his whiskers flattened back against his muzzle. Numbers charge for him.
"Ow!" Lauryn thinks she's had quite enough of all of this, but is somewhat perplexed at to what to do. She frowns as she sits, bleeding, trying to wrestle the squid with one hand. A melancholy sigh escaps her.
Then, the door opens and the fox appears! "You! Will you help me divide tho- ... " She pauses, staring at him. Something is wrong here." "The, um ... numbers? ... " Suddenly what she's saying sounds less and less appropriate. More blank staring at the man ensues ... Until it hits her like a lightning bolt.
"Oh!"
Lauryn looks at the scene, then frowns as she concentrates. Amassing her will, she makes a dimissive gesture with a hand, dismissing the isityros.
The image of the Rephidim room melts away, but the numbers and the monsters don't. "Don't you tell me to go away, young lady!" the 7 shrieks in her stepmother's voice. "I'm in charge here!" The squid's needles are sunk into her chest, her chin, her arm, and they wriggle painfully beneath her skin as if drilling for her blood. The columns of numbers charging the archon shout for solutions; he tries to fend them off with his sword, but they are not harmed or deterred by it.
"Ugh, wha- what do I do, Archon?" Lauryn's never had them be this insistent before, not since the crash. She feels their power and reserves, greater than what she's had to deal with before, as they resist her attempts at dismissal. More worrying still is the way they deflect the Archon's sword; there's something important about that, Lauryn thinks, but she hasn't the time to dwell on what. Staring with bewilderment, the Gallah rubs at her wounds and thinks.
It then seems so obvious! "Halt you ... you numbers! You're out of, um, order, and forming improper blocks!"
The numbers stop their charge, and fidget in place. They glance at each other nervously, and start shuffling into orderly equations. The archon watches bemusedly. He pokes at one set with the tip of his sword, repositioning it so that the equation balances.
Well, now Lauryn has math problems. It's slightly less horrible than being attacked. She stares at them, then 'ows' again as the squid stabs her. Glaring at it, she focuses her will on it, too, trying to get it to write with her blood like a macbre automated pencil.
The squid slowly pulls out its stingers and shuffles down to the floor. Under Lauryn's conscious direction, it starts doing the work to solve the problems. The numbers coorect her when she's wrong, and the squid pokes her for fresh blood now and again to refill. But as each equation is solved, the numbers forming it disperse. Eventually, the last of them are gone.
No longer needing the squid, and with her attention undivided, Lauryn focuses her will to make it, too, vanish. When it's gone, she looks down at herself and sighs. "It seems we known now, Archon," she reamrks. Cautiously, she touches at her wounds.
The numbers on her fur are gone now too, likewise solved. Her body hurts all over, especially where the squid stuck her, but she's not bleeding and she can't feel any swelling.
"Nineteen," Archon Skotonys says. He doesn't say anything else, but she feels as though she has disappointed him. That he was hoping she would go longer. "We shall resume training in the morning, Ria." He delivers one of his small Laosian bows. "Good night."
Lauryn sighs, too tired to hide her emotions behind a mask of Laosian composure, and bows back. "Good night, Archon."
He withdraws, leaving her to an empty room. Her quarters in Osaon are much nicer than the attic room in Rephidim -- not as opulent as the Astikos or the room in Skotonys's sister's house, but large, with a soft rug on the floor and simple paintings on the walls. Little touches from Kythis make it homey. It does not feel like a setting for nightmares.
"I'm a setting for nightmares," Lauryn sighs as she flops back in to bed. It had all been going so well, too. But, she can't help but feel this outcome was inevitable sooner or later, and tries not to be too down about it. She did snap out of it sooner than previous similiar events, though she would have prefered to have done so without the Archon's intercession. And, there was something special about this time: the numbers deflected the Archon's sword. They didn't even pause before him. "What does that mean?" she asks an empty room.
Lauryn considers sleeping, but the event bothers her. The details swirl like puzzle pieces, hinting at a bigger picture she's unable to fully envision. The Archon slew demons-isityros as if they were but petty swordsmen, but he couldn't even touch the numbers. Looking back on all her previous isityros visits, they all seem to compose of nightmares -- her nightmares -- and the numbers seal it. "Isityros are nightmares," she murmurs. If they're nightmares, why are some more dangerous to than others, she wonders. "Hmm."
Looking back, Lauryn recounts the Archon's previous battles. Zombies, demons, a phantom version of herself, none of these resisted the man, but all were tied to her somehow. They did resist her, too. If isityros are nightmares, she considers, and the nightmares are tied to me -- or maybe even the persons involved -- and the Archon faltered against the numbers, then does that mean ... "The Archon is intimidated by math?"
Lauryn blinks at her realization, and all else it may mean. That the Archon is intimidated by anything is startling, but her idea suggests a lot about the nature of isityros, too. It's all very enlightening. "Darkly enlightening," she murmurs, chuckling at how even her 'lightening' is 'dark.'
The next day, they start drilling on magic again. This time, Lauryn has a hard time making the isityros appear. They're a perverse affliction.
In the subsequent days, however, she has several good days, where she's able to summon and dismiss them at will. Even then, she can't control their target selection very well, but being able to get rid of them is good enough. It's tempting to summon up more equations set them upon Archon Skotonys to see if he really is intimidated by math.
They're drilling in a room in the cellar, lighted by one of the smokeless Laosian lanterns. Unlike her room, it's a good setting for nightmares. It's easy to make spiders come out of the corners: drokar-sized monsterous spiders with humanoid torsos and human faces rising above eight-legged bodies. In a particular moment of accomplishment, Lauryn makes a set of them parade across the cellar before her, slavering and seething beasts with pincered hands clicking. At the end, they bow unwillingly to her and the Archon, then disappear. Skotonys nods to her. "Well done," he says, in on e of his rare expressions of verbal approval.
Lauryn nods as well; it was well done. She's found that controlling isityros leaves little room for modesty, self-doubt, or any other emotion that might threaten her self-regard and, thus, her willpower. She studies where the isityros vanished a moment, and then turns to the Archon. "Archon Skotonys, would you be willing to participate in an experiment Ria has been considering? There will be some risk, but Ria cannot say as to how or what," she asks.
The whiskers above one eye lift, and the archon cants an ear. But he nods agreement. "Our purpose is to learn."
"Then let us see what there is to learn." Lauryn takes a step back from the Archon, and faces him. "Prepare yourself, Archon," she warns. Then, she grasps at the screaming winds, the essence of magic that swirls around to her. She takes what she has learned and uses it to shape her isityros, drawing off the idea that isityros are nightmares, and the nightmares somehow gauge their strength and resilence on the people they torment. From behind the Archon, a shuffling begins in the darkness ...
The Archon does not turn instantly, but his long and short swords are in his hands in an eyeblink. He scans their surroundings briefly, then turns around and confronts:
A diagram of a circle, with a diameter labeled 38. It demands in a hollow, angry voice: "What is my area, to the third decimal place?"
Lauryn folds her hands and watches with an impassive face, fighting her concern even as her curiosity rises. For now, all she can do is watch. The rest will come in time. She just wishes it didn't make her feel so stained, using the Archon like this.
The Archon stares at it. The diagram looks particularly menacing, looming over the fox, as red as blood, with arcane and vaguely mathematical symbols fading in and out on it, dripping blood. "ANSWER ME!" it cries out, floating forwards. Skotonys takes an involuntary step back. His whiskers splay and his ears spread. Then ...
Skotonys starts to laugh.
"STATE MY AREA!" the hollow, sinister voice commands again, even angrier.
Skotonys shakes his head. "Nineteen times pi squared?" he offers.
At this, Lauryn's ears go askew, her expression switching from impassive to bemused. Did she drive the Archon mad?
"TO THE THIRD DECIMAL PLACE!"
"I think I need chalk and a slate for this. 19 time 19 equals ... 190 plus 171 ... " The archon pokes at the circle with the tip of his sword as it advances menacingly. "What are you going to do if I don't answer?"
"I WILL POSE A MORE DIFFICULT PROBLEM!" The circle ignores the poke, continuing to advances. Skotonys straightens and does not back down from the appartition, even as it stands diagram-to-nose with him.
Letting her expression return to neutrality, Lauryn watches with feigned indifference, face a mask of placid concentration. Her eyes glow faintly from the power she's holding on to, but for now, she choses not to reign in her creation. She waits to see how the Archon fairs, leaving his fate in his hands -- at least for now.
"361 times 3.14 equals ... I definitely need chalk and slate for this ... Something like 1200. Even Rio Nyrin never made me work problems to the third decimal place in my head." Skotonys sounds amused.
"THAT IS NOT CORRECT!" The circle moves until it's overlapping him. "NOW YOU MUST CALCULATE THE AREA OF A SPHERE!" It spins, forming a bloody sphere around him.
"I think not," Skotonys says, mildly.
While not the outcome Lauryn had both hoped for and dreaded, the scene's odd turn has proven interesting in its own way for Lauryn. For one, she has never heard the Archon laugh, or even seem slightly ruffled. The man before her could very well be someone else completly. It must be some sort of weakness, of that she's sure, but it doesn't seem to be potent enough to truly threaten the man; which is indeed interesting. Thinking, Lauryn realizes that inner knowledge of a person or people must be vital to forming effective isityros by her own hand, which just leaves the mystery of how uncontrolled isityros seem to know how to terrify others so easily -- unless it's simply because they appeal to a universal sense of dread. "Hmmm."
The sphere shimmers, dripping blood down on top of him. It spatters his whiskers. The archon pivots, slashing at it with quick, graceful motions. Sections are cut in arcs with silver blades, but the wounds in the sphere heal almost as fast as they are made. "You cannot dispell me with mere might!" it crows.
And so the isityros cannot be so easily banished, a fact that interests Lauryn greatly. A cerebral nightmare resists physical disruption; very interesting indeed. She tilts her head, observing, feeling a bit like the doctors who used to observe her. Now, she can kind of see how they could be so interested, yet detached.
"Then I will get someone who can dispell you with math. Ria Wisa!" Skotonys has a way of projecting his voice without shouting, and he uses that loud, firm, carrying tone now.
A moment later, a voice comes from the top of the stairs. "Archon?" She doesn't sound eager to come down to the cellar, which is understandable.
"Come downstairs, Ria. It is safe," Skotonys says with assurance.
Lauryn makes no effort to stop the Afenti's approach. For all intents and purposes, she might as well be a dark and sinister statue, standing and watching like a gargoyle. Her eyes faintly illuminate her face, and her hair stirs despite the lack of significant air flow, but otherwise she is unnmoving.
The sphere shimmers, pulsating furiously, and then pops out of existance as the human woman's footsteps pad on the stairs. It's gone before she gets into sight. "What did the Archon need this one for?" she asks deferentially.
"What is the area of a sphere?" Skotonys asks, calmly.
"The volume is 4/3 pi r cubed." Ria Wisa sounds nonplussed. "The surface is 4 pi r squared."
"Thank you, Ria. Diabaino." Skotonys turns to Lauryn as the woman retreats hastily back up the stairs.
Lauryn blinks at the sudden departure of her isityros, not having expected the afentis's mere presence would obliterate it. The glow fades from her eyes, and her hair settles peacefully on her shoulders. She glances at the afentis, consideringly. If fears, doubts, or other weaknesses strengthen an isityros, as with the Archin just now, then people of powerful ability, will, or courage against what the isityros represents must be as anthema to it, she thinks.
Turning to regard the Archon, Lauryn asks, "You are unhurt, Archon?"
"I am. What have you learned from this, Ria Vetyros?" the archon asks.
"Ria has learned something as to the nature of isityros, Archon. From last night, Ria took from her experience the insight that the isityros prey upon doubts, fears, and weaknesses. Ria suspected the Archon," and here she bows apoligetically, "may suffer doubt when faced with mathmatics, as Ria does, for Ria observed the Archon's blade was ineffective against the incarnate mathmatics. Thus, Ria concludes isityros are stronger if the subject is weak to what they represent, but equally weak to subjects that easily defeat the fears they represent, such as in the cade with the Afentis's approach."
The archon considers this for a moment, and then gives a short bow. "Do your isityros work upon animals, Ria?"
"Ria cannot see why not, Archon. But, Ria does have another mystery on her hands: some isityros -- the ones she simply lets loose, or that come unbidden -- seem to instinctively appeal to fears of their own accord. This is a great mystery to Ria," says the Gallah.
"We will acquire some animals for continued testing." The archon looks thoughtful. "I will see if the tyr has some Neyemen prisoners that can be spared for this work. That will come later, and not here."
"But this is enough for one day. You will resume your studies with Ria Wisa now." He moves to the stairs, and glances back at Lauryn, whiskers splayed in amusement. "Does Ria Lauryn remember how to calculate the volume of a sphere?"
Lauryn nods to that. She had half expected she might come against Neyemen again, and the idea of training against prisoners makes sense to her. "Archon, it seems best if Ria is taught the nature of the beasts involved, such as what may hunt them or startle them. The same will be true of the Neyemen. It seems Ria must know one's heart, to better strike at their body and mind," she says. After pausing to listen, the young woman simply smiles. "Now now, Archon, lets not let that monster out again."
They do procure some animals, and Lauryn's monsters work well enough on them. Although they don't leave marks, they are able to terrorize some meat birds to the point of heart failure. Beasthounds are more resilient: they'll backdown from the apparitions, barking and growling, but they don't die of fright no matter how much Lauryn torments them. It's a grim thing to be doing to a living being. After the first day of it, Lauryn finds her control weakening. When she tries to set an isityros on a small fluffy creature two handspans long, she manifests instead three monstrous beasts that hound and hurt her. Skotonys has to help her dispel them. Subsequent tries are likewise plagued with problems, as her magic keeps turning upon her again. After a couple of hours, Skotonys calls a halt to the session.
Lauryn sits heavily upon a nearby fence, putting a hand to her head. Her arm is covered with scratches, but that's not what's bothering her. She has come to know a weakness of her own, an insidious weakness that hurts her even as it weakens her control and brings her isityros against her and fills her with guilt: compassion. "Ria has come upon a difficult obstacle, Archon," she admits heavily. Her eyes unwillingly turn to regard the caged animals, not so very far away. Just looking at them makes her heart ache. She musn't fial the Tyr -- but does that mean she must sacrifice every ounce of her heart to do so?
"Yes. This will take time to overcome. Come." Skotonys beckons to her, and leads the way out of the cellar full of animals and misery. On the second floor, in a brightly-lit sitting room, he sits on one of the low chairs and summons a servant with a bell. He gestures for Lauryn to sit as well.
After taking her seat, Lauryn stares gloomily at the floor. "Archon," she breathes, feeling somehow tired depite having done little actual physical movement, " ... Does the Tyr wish that I become a monster? I fear there is no room for compassion in the heart of one who would call isityros. They feed on weakness, but without compassion ... Oh Archon, what a horrible being I have become." She reaches to rub at her eyes, hoping she isn't about to break down.
"Lauryn. Look at me." Skotonys gazes at her evenly. It's very rare that he uses her given name, since the tyr gave her a new family name. And she's never heard him use her name without a title on it before.
The unusual address jars Lauryn out of her self-pity long enough for ehr to look up and meet the Archon's eyes. "Yes, Archon?"
"You have seen me kill men. Living people, with wives and children. With dreams and aspirations. I have cut them down in battle, without consideration for who they are. Does that make me a monster?" As always, he is calm and composed, speaking simple facts without emotional attachment to them.
"I ... " Lauryn's initial answer is "yes," but she finds it hard to call the Archon a monster. He is, if anything, her monster, and she his, which she finds oddly comforting. But, the fact remains they are both bringers of sorrow and terror, terrible people by her own mind.
"Yes. No? Well ... Oh Archon, my heart tells me we are both monsters, but you are so much more than that, and I can't think of you as such even if that is my answer," she explains, head drooping again.
The archon nods at this answer, with no indication of disapproval. "I am what I need to be, to serve the tyr, to protect the tyr's people. You will become what you must become, to do the same. There is no shame in this. It is the only path of rightness. It will be difficult, but you will follow it. But that you must make the journey of a thousand miles does not mean you must run it all in a single day. It will take time, and you will rest and reprovision along the way."
"I am glad I have someone like you to help guide me, Archon. Thank you for your kind words, and for your direction. I ... I think I will be fine, now," Lauryn says. She takes a breath, then exhales, nodding. She even sits straight again. "I find no love in tormenting animals, Archon. I can see the use in learning through them, and even in a situation such as the attack upon this town, but it is a dirty thing. That fuzzy creature -- what was it, Archon? -- it is a formidible opponent in this case."
"A rifi. Yes. It is terrible to be faced with such a foe," the archon agrees, with a straight face and the barest cant to his ears. "We can use less appealing animals for future tests." At that point, the servant finally shows up, and Skotonys instructs him to set the animals in their pens outside for the remainder of the day.
Then the archon turns back to Lauryn: "Tell me: your isityros can manifest as many kinds of fears, as you have demonstrated recently. Have they ever manifested as things which were not terrors to anyone present?"
Lauryn considers the question for a long moment, then shakes her head. "As far as I can recall and known what I do now, Archon, they are always some kind of fear. The mathmatic creations must have come from my mathmatics anxiety, while the monsterous beings are simple enough: most people fear creatures of menacing demeanoirs and countenance. With the animals, I thought of predators. Have I missed something, Archon?" The woman looks curious, ears forward.
"What one man fears, another might cherish." The archon looks thoughtful. "Your accidental nightmare of formulae frightened you, but the demanding circle was summoned consciously, and did not provoke great alarm in either of us. But it persisted despite a lack of terror to feed upon."
"That is true, Archon. Perhaps it was feeding off doubt, or weakness? I could not have answered it, nor could you, Archon. But either way, it seemed so ... So grasping. It was hardly much of a horror," Lauryn answers.
Whiskers splay, amused. "It was not. Have you ever tried to manifest an isityros that you did not think would be frightening?"
Again, Lauryn thinks on the matterm and shakes her head. "No Archon, I have not. Is there even such a thing? Can a isityros be non-frightening and still be isityros?"
"The diagram managed," Skotonys points out. "Perhaps you should try."
At this, Lauryn looks doubtful. "I was still slightly intimidated by its insistence on solving problems," she remarks, but nods anyway. "Now, Archon?"
The archon sits back. "It is up to you. If you would rather continue your studies with Ria Wisa, you are free to do so."
"Mmm." Lauryn settles back, then extends a hand out towards the table. She calls upon the flow of magic, pulling it to her, and imagines ... a rifi.
A hazy shape takes form on her hand, like a little fluffy cloud with a wedge-shaped head. Little legs like twigs stick out from the lower side. It's more like a child's drawing of a rifi than an actual rifi. The head swivels from side to side, looking around.
Lauryn's jaw drops an inch as she stares at the little creature in her hand. Then, suddenly, she goes, "Awww!"
The archon leans forward, watching it. The small shape raises its nose towards Lauryn's. It rises up on its hind paws. Then its eyes flash blood-red, and it bites Lauryn's nose. "Raarrrrrrr!"
Lauryn's ears shoot up! "AWW," she says, in a somewhat nasally voice. "It's trying to kill me, but it's so cute! Aren't you cute!" She takes a finger and trys to fuzzle it.
The phantom risi scrabbles at her muzzle with its forepaws, nibbling at her with needle-sharp teeth. As is usual with the isityros, it hurts a great deal and appears to be bleeding, but probably isn't doing any actual damage. When she fuzzles its stomach, it scrabbles at her hand with its twiggy hindlegs. After a moment, it falls off her muzzle beneath the fuzzling, and scrabbles about on its back. It seems to be simultaneously giggling and growling. It ineffectually tries to disembowel her fuzzling hand with tiny sharp claws.
"This is very cute, Archon, and yet strangely disturbing," Lauryn remarks as she leans over the isityros, fuzzling its tummy even as she winces from the pain. "I'm not at all sure what to make of this."
"It is fun though. Painful, but fun," adds the young woman.
Skotonys leans a little further forward and extends a finger to touch one ear of the apparition. The risi snaps at digit and misses. As Lauryn's distracted by talking to the archon, the risi loses cohesion and disipates into a mist that soon vanishes. "You will have to try that again some time," the archon says.
Lauryn blinks back to where the phantom rifi was, frowning in bemusement. "It certainly wasn't fearsome or nightmare inspire, but it seemed to possess a degree of ... viciousness? Hate? It was really something odd." She hakes her head and leans back. "I think I have conjured enough for today, Archon. I think I will welcome math, if just for being predictable and safe."