As Lauryn suspected, separate interrogations of the Laosian prisoners revealed that they were not being honest. Rio Wotimus, the prisoner she and Kyria Orevo were questioning, isn't the only one that tried to escape. None of them succeeded.
Having established that their cover story is a lie, the truth remains to be determined. All four prisoners agreed that Rio Ifiro was their leader; one of the few points of their various stories they had in common. When confronted with their dishonesty, two of them admitted that Ifiro had hired them to do raids against the Yemenos. Rio Wotimus said he didn't know, but assumed that Ifiro was acting out of greed, or maybe a desire for vengeance against the prodotis for prior wrongs. Another also claimed ignorance, but confesses that the pay was too high for greed to make sense. "Raiding farms? Tk. He gave me more coin than we'd've gotten from them, even if we hadn't been caught."
Ifiro and the fourth prisoner aren't speaking at all, once the Laosians make it clear they won't accept their protestations of innocence.
Ifiro is currently on one of the first-floor rooms in the Yemenos guard tower, with four Yemenos guards, Skotonys, and Ulifi. An exhausted and irate Kyria Orevo stands outside with Lauryn. "I am weary of this man's recalcitrance, and I've no wish to waste what little political capital we have left with the Yemenos just so that we can extract him back to the tyr's inquisitors. But we must know who hired him. Ria Vetyros, can you use your powers to loosen his tongue?"
inquisitors. But we must know who hired him. Ria Vetyros, can you use your powers to loosen his tongue?"
"It would be my honor and pleasure, Kyria Orevo," Lauryn replies, offering the woman an appropriately deep bow. Turning to the prisoner and stepping forward, Lauryn cocks her head to the side and examines the man, as if he were a particularly interesting puzzle or new variety of rare bug. "Rio Ifiro, your crimes are heinous and vast. You know this. We know this. What remains for Rio is the giving of the entirety of the truth before Tyr's law, which is entirely seemly and correct of any good Laosian -- but clearly you are lacking in many virtues, so we will focus on your lack there of. As you are a covetous man willing to sell his quality for coin, we will speak in such terms. What have you now? Honor, perhaps, to your employer? A distant memory of good-will and loyalty to all Tyrs? Your health? Your life? Your ... sanity?" Lauryn cocks her head the other way, and nods a little to herself. "Did you hear Rio Wotimus scream?"
Rio Ifiro sets his jaw and doesn't answer. He is kneeling on the floor after the Laosian fashion, though there are no mats to kneel upon. The watchtower room is spartan and now crowded with so many people in it. It used to have a few chairs and a table; the table has been moved out and replaced with more chairs for those who aren't charged with anything.
Rowan2 uhhhs.
"Ahh, the stoic, silent approach. Brave, but ultimately a useless and hollow gesture of defiance. I have routed armies, Rio Ifiro, and brought Rio Wotimus to his knees with but a gesture. As you are already on your knees, we may skip that part." Lauryn smiles a little, a little too pleasantly. "Are you aware of the attack on Osaon, Rio Ifiro? Do you feel the stain of Laosian blood upon your mind and soul? Perhaps you heard of other horrors there? Are you really so foolish as to think you can resist the Tyr's will -- my power -- here, alone, where armies before you have scattered? Must you further defile yourself and waste the Tyr's time with such petty, childish antics? I give you one last chance to answer before I begin, and then it is the Isityros you must appease."
He raises his eyes. "You are making a mistake," he says, flatly.
Archon Ulifi, standing not far away, shifts position. Archon Skotonys watches with his usual masked equanamity. The Yemenos guards don't understand the conversation, and though there's a translator present, he's not translating for them at the moment.
Lauryn's brows raise, and she almost laughs. "Oh, am I, Rio Ifiro? In what way have I erred? Is it the seeking of Tyr's justice? The execution of my duties as sworn before the Tyr? The defending of Tyr's land and people as well as our prodotis allies and pacts? Please, enlighten me as to our error here, Rio," inquires the young woman. "And do be direct and efficent in your wording, I am quickly losing patience with you and your comrad's sad attempts at evasion."
"In thinking these prodotis are, or even can be, allies of Laos Enosi. But of course you would think that. Prodotis." He spits at Lauryn's feet, and sweeps his gaze to the other Laosian's in the room: the two archons and the kyria. "I'd hope for better from you." His gaze lingers a moment on Ulifi, then he looks down again.
Having asked Lauryn to interrogate the prisoner, Kyria Orevo appears content to let Lauryn conduct the interrogation as she chooses without interference. Skotonoys doesn't look concerned, either. Ulifi looks annoyed, but that's pretty typical of many Laosians.
"Ahh, of course. A question of loyalty and faithfulness." Lauryn nods quite acceptingly, as if having fully expected such an attack. "Normally, such words might be spoken by my fellow, honorable, Laosians. It is no slight. I am well aware of my place in society, and accept its burdens. In acting on the Tyr's behalf, I elevate myself. This begs the question, Rio Ifiro, what such refusal to answer the Tyr's emmisaries does to your own stature." Lauryn looks at the man quite pointedly, then tsks in her best Laosian fashion, opting to switch from unpreturbed to annoyed -- so better to mock the man's Laosian self-image and call in to doubt his claim to being a true man of Laos at all.
Ifiro snorts. "A prodotis would not understand." Arrogance and stoicism come easily to a Laosian; it's a good mask for his nervousness, but not a perfect one.
"Ha! We shall see, Rio Ifiro. I will offer you this before I scatter your mind and pick from the pieces what I require: it was by judgement of the Tyr I was given my name. To call in to question my place and position is to question the Tyr himself. For that insult, I will forgo any further mercy." Nodding once in finality, Lauryn glances back at her fellows and says, "Let it not be said Ria vetyros does not show mercy and measure in her affairs and duties, when called for. This man will writhe, but you need not. If any of you do not wish to observe this, please, now is the time to depart."
"By judgement of a tyr," Ifiro says, quietly.
Skotonys gives a slight shake of his head at the offer. Kyria Orevo nods her head and gestures for Lauryn to continue. Ulifi puts a hand to the hilt of his sword but doesn't leave. The translator says soemthing to the guards, and the felines flatten their ears. They don't look happy, but they're not leaving either.
"We serve our Tyrs; all demand justice and respect." And with that, Lauryn extends her hands out, as if catching a wind no one feels but her. "As I have been practicing my art, allow me to speak aloud some of the details of it -- I have heard in teaching one learns their art best, Rio Ifiro. Now then, do you hear it?" Lauryn shakes her head. "No, of course you do not -- no other does. The screaming, maddening wind that blows through all of creation, for almost all beings fear and dread, Rio. Yes, this wind blows through the world, through the cracks of the mind, mortal weakness, and upon it dream the Isityros. Observe then, as I impress my will upon that wind, and come forth the feasters of mortal fragility." As Lauryn finishes her explaination, a strange cast begins about her. The room seems darker, somehow, and Lauryn's eyes acquire a growing redness that has nothing to do with the chamber light. Her hair and robes begin to stir, acting upon a wind that touches no one else.
Ifiro hunches his shoulders, staring at the floor. One of the Yemenos guards snarls, his hackles going up, and shifts his grip on the shaft of his polearm.
"Don't care to watch, Rio Ifiro? Where is that defiance now?" Lauryn raises her hands until she grasps at the sky, and as her hands reach their apex, there is no longer anything normal abour Ria Vetyros. Her clothes billow in the unseen wind, and shadows lurk about her in defiance of the light. Her eyes smolder in menacing red, and even her young voice has a razor edge, too sinister for her slight frame. "There are many ways in which to shatter a mind. Warriors gird themselves in their bravery, scholars in their knowledge, kyria in their nobility, and even prodotis in their own fashion. No man or woman is without fear. While some may fear tooth upon flesh ..," Lauryn extends a hand, and from the shadow a tooth-mawed leech boils over, attaching to her arm and drawing blood, which she observes impassively, " ... while fear and doubt fill others. Which is it for you, Rio? Or, perhaps a different fate is in order? Would you like to be a Yemenos, Rio?"
A shudder goes through the prisoner despite his efforts to suppress it. He does not speak. From somewhere behind her, Lauryn hears a hiss of caught breath. The bite of the leech hurts, a bearable physical pain that Lauryn knows the limits of. The worst is always what she doesn't know.
As it is for me, so it is for him -- fear of the unknown is a fear I must master, 'for it is common to all mortal men. Lauryn pats the leech on her arm, a exacting gesture of feigned affection. "Yes, I think that is for you, Rio. A Yemenos you shall be; it is most appropriate. As you have tkane, so shall you give." With her patting hand, Lauryn gestures towards the man, and the shadows bleed away to race and roil towards him. He does not know I can't truly make him a Yemenos, but I can fake it, and his fear will do the rest ... as perhaps may the watching Yemenos's other feelings. A wicked grin appears on Lauryn's face as the shadows become fleshy monstrocities, hands and eyes and other parts, covered in the fur of the Yemenos. "But is that enough, I wonder?"
The human has become the image of a feline, from ears to tail to furred hands. "No." Ifiro stares at his hands in disbelief. His fingers curl, and little claws pop out from the tips. "No -- you can't -- it's not -- " he squeezes his eyes shut, clawing furrows in the wooden floor. "This is not happening!"
The Yemenos guards back away from their prisoner, nostrils flared and uneasy. Ulifi makes a quiet, strangled sound deep in his throat. The kyria edges to one side, away from the shadows that suround Lauryn and her victim. Only Skotonys appears unmoved.
"Oh but it is, Rio. But I fear it is not enough; your crimes warrant ... more." In reality, Lauryn fears none of what she does. Rather, she is quite pleased with her work, even giddy about it. The plan she has formulated in her mind seems like a shining example of her progress and cleverness, and fills her with pride. That a man suffers deeply by her own action no longer bothers her; she is content in her justice, her purpose, and most of all, her chance to again strike revenge upon those that brought Osason harm -- and her justice is most poetic this time, she thinks. "No, one Yemenos is not enough for so many lives, and so Ria Vetyros can do better: you shall be Yemenos woman, Rio -- no, Ria -- Ifiro. For, as it has been said to me, Yemenos women are good only to make babies, and you shall have many to make up for what you have taken." Lauryn's outstretched hand closes slowly, like the talon of some terrible bird squeezing the life from its prey, and so the flesh and shadows move to follow.
"No!" Ria Ifira shrieks, in a high-pitched woman's voice. The ragged clothing Ifiro had been wearing is loose on the Yemenos woman's frame. She huddles inside it, drawing the sides of the vest tight over her new-formed bosom, her tail curling around her body protectively. "You can't do this to me! Please!" She looks at Lauryn with wide fearful eyes in a tawny-furred face, feline ears flattened back. "Not this, gods, no!"
"I can and must; the power to end this is yours, Ria. Will you answer my questions, or shall you spend your days in womans work, beneath the warm body of a Yemenos male, to birth the next generations?" Lauryn's brow raises, quite pointedly. She withdraws her hand, satisfied of her work for the moment, happy to let the fleshcrafting isityros sup on the mans fear of what he has seemingly become. "And do not think your friends and allies will save you, for who shall believe you to be what you claim? And lo, I give you relief from your burdens! What need you for the honor of a Laosian man, as a Yemenos woman? I think this is entirely suitable for you, but I suppose I can end it -- before it becomes permanent."
"No -- no -- I can't." She buries her face in tan-furred hands, squeezing her eyes shut. "I won't betray -- no! I won't!" The shadows lick playfully at the edges of Ifiro's gikeko, dissolving at it and making it more ragged.
"Well then, it cannot be helped," Lauryn says with a sigh and a shrug. "I shall leave you to your new life, Ria, and inform the Yemenos of your crimes against them and to what they may do with you. While some may be disinclined, I am sure you will find many a Yemenos male whole will be glad to avenge himself upon you." Turning, Lauryn faces her fellows and says, "I am sure he'll talk eventually, and we do have other leads." She winks. "Please, inform the Yemenos guards of what I have done, and that they are free, encouraged, to make use of Ria -- can we even call her that anymore? Surely there is a Yemenos address to use? We will return in the morning, after Ria has had time to become acquainted with her situation."
"Of course by then it will be permanent," Lauryn adds, in afterthought. "I suppose we could still extend a position of slavery to Ria."
"This is madness!" Ulifi bursts out. "You cannot mean to leave him like this! Among these prodotis?"
Kyria Orevo looks shaken. "As ... as you say, Ria Vetyros. The traitor is of no use to us." She steadies herself as she speaks. Ulifi gapes at her. Skotonys doesn't speak. He doesn't look at the new-made Yemenos, or at Lauryn, either.
"I am no traitor!" Ria Ifiro exclaims. "Please! Just kill me! Don't leave me like this!"
"No Ria, you shall live long, I shall see to it, to better think of what you have done and what you could have done," Lauryn saus dismissively over her shoulder. "I think I will remain and watch, in fact. Kyria, Afentis, Archon, you need not burden yourself further."
The Yemenos guards don't look like they have any interest in playing the role Lauryn's assigned them in this spectacle. They don't look like they even want to touch the prisoner, perhaps just in case whatever she's got is contagious.
"To watch what? Your depraved game?" Ulifi looks insulted. "Kyria, stop this madness! This goes beyond torture!"
The kyria hesitates again, not sure what she should do. Archon Skotonys watches for her cue with a carefully bland expression. Ria Ifiro sobs and throws herself at Ulifi's feet. "Please! Gods, don't let her leave me like this!"
"To see justice done," says Lauryn sharlp as she turns around, " ... and to provide you with what dwindling options I can. Answer, and I shall attempt to unmake what I have wrought. Wait, and it shall be beyond my power to unmake, and we shall permit you, perhaps, a comfortable postion as a slave. Delay further, and we will be gone forever."
Kyria Orevo glances to the archons, as if looking for a cue herself. Skotonys gives her a barely perceptible nod. Orevo draws herself up. "We leave you to your work, Ria Vetyros, and the prisoner to ... her punishment. Come, Archon Ulifi." She turns to go, and Skotonys follows her.
Ulifi doesn't. "I'll not have your depravities on my conscience, prodotis," he snarls at Lauryn. He jerks back as Ifiro grabs at his foot. "Don't touch me!"
Ifiro makes a plaintive mewling sound, incoherent except for the word "no" interspersed throughout.
Lauryn offers the departing officers the same deep bow she had when they assigned her this task, then proceeds to walk over to a chair. She only pauses when Ulifi snarls at her, which she meets by turning to him and bowing the same way. "I am sorry my work offends you, Archon Ulifi," she offers him.
"Archon! Enough. I have the charge of this mission, and I have given my command," Kyria Orevo says.
Ulifi glances at his commander, and then back at Lauryn, his lips still curled back in a snarl. "Your 'work'? I'm putting an end to this now!" Ulifi draws his sword in one smooth motion, his gaze now not on Lauryn, but upon the prisoner.
Lauryn looks up from her chair, straining to maintain her impassive expression. While she initially enjoyed this, the strain of watching someone -- anyone -- suffer is wearying. She is buffered by knowing all she has done is, on a level, just an illusion, and that fear and assumption allow it to exist so strongly, but the Archon's blade is no illusion. She cannot tell him the truth, or what she has so carefully crafted will come to nothing, and the party will seem like incompetent fools Ulifi will never give in to -- or so she belives. But if she does nothing, their lead may die, through no fault of her own. She decides to act upon Archon Skotonys's advice and trust her fellows to do their duty, or to fail it, as they chose. Tempering her will, Lauryn watches on.
"Ulifi! Stop!" the Kyria commands.
The unsettled Yemenos guards are mainly here to make sure the prisoner doesn't escape. They don't understand much of what's going on, and they were instructed to let the Laosians do as they would with the prisoner. A couple of them start for Ulifi when he draws his sword, but they
The unsettled Yemenos guards are mainly here to make sure the prisoner doesn't escape. They don't understand much of what's going on, and they were instructed to let the Laosians do as they would with the prisoner. A couple of them start for Ulifi when he draws his sword, but they were not prepared for this, nor expecting to need to protect Ifiro.
Ifiro makes no move to defend herself; she's huddled on the floor and not even watching Ulifi. The archon's blade flashes down --
-- and bites into tawny-furred flesh. Ifiro cries out as it cuts into her shoulder.
Then Skotonys is at Ulifi's side, his own blade knocking Ulifi's back before it can go any deeper. "The kyria has given her command."
Ifiro whimpers, sitting up and moving for the archon's deflected sword to impale herself upon it.
Inwardly, Lauryn breathes a sigh of relief, at least until the prisoner sets herself up to be impaled. "The kyria has spoken, Archon. I understand your discomfort, but it is not for you to decide. Do not lower yourself so. It is beneath you." The situation has come as a surprise to Lauryn, who had anticipated Laosian severe discomfort as part of her strategy, did not expect an Archon to break with his honor and act on his feelings. The insight in to the mind of the Archon is interesting and sad, all at the same time, but most of all vexing. The young woman decides she should have relied upon Archon Skotonys and the kyria alone, and that not all Laosian have the stomach or will to endure her magics, even indirectly.
One of the Yemenos guards decides that, even if he doesn't know what's going on, stopping the prisoner from acting is still within his purview. He moves to grab one of Ifiro's shoulders and pull her backwards. She screams at his touch, writihing manically. "No! NO! KILL ME!" Another Yemenos helps the first; the other two guards are too unsettled to take immediate action.
Ulifi glowers at Skotonys. Skotonys waits with impenetrable calm, dropped into one of the standard guard stances with his blade up.
"Ria Ifiro, will you just simply answer now? You dishonor not only yourself, but everyone around you. Surely an answer will save you further grief, and yet still you refuse, begging for death, and sullying an Archon with your pleading. Answer, and it will all be over," Lauryn says, trying to manage a good mix between bored and annoyed.
Lauryn's words barely carry over the prisoner's screams. One of the Yemenos ties her hands back, with the appearance of doing so just so he won't have to touch her any more. Ulifi growls at Skotonys. "You can't mean to let this continue."
"I mean to do the will of my commander and my tyr. As will you, Archon," Skotonys answers. By the door, the kyria looks furious.
"IF," Lauryn now raising her voice, "it will make the Archon feel better, I shall forgo the physical torments I had planned and think of something worse, but more to his tastes. And IF the Ria will answer, I will end this here and now."
"Don't try to make me a party to your disgusting, dishonorable scheme!" Archon Ulifi snaps at Lauryn. He wipes his blade and sheathes it, glaring at everyone as he stalks past Orevo and out the door. The prisoner whimpers. Skotonys follows suit, unflappable as always.
As the kyria moves to follow, Ria Ifiro cries out to her. "No! Have mercy, lady! You can't leave me alone with them! Not like this!"
Orevo scowls at the Yemenos woman. "If you would but answer our questions, none of this would be necessary!"
Inside Lauryn's head, the isityros swirl. She feels the pressure building inside her; it's rare that she's kept the same vision going for so long, with so little change or dynamism to it: usually it either spirals beyond her control or she manages to stop it. She can sense it eating away at her concentration, spirits whispering in her head the ways in which they long to make the nightmare worse.
Lauryn settles back in her chair. She isn't sure which is worse, the channeling of magic or dealing with Laosian dramatics. At least her magic is especially well-crafted today, though the stability of it eats at her and her isityros in a way she hadn't expected. She supposes that predictability is comforting, and must soon either extract an answer or allow the isityros some leeway and make her torments worse. "I grow impatient, Ria," Lauryn says flatly. "I have cursed you to a degree, and that shall soon remain forever, but these dramatics are tiresome. Perhaps you'd also like to be blind, never seeing your fate until it clutches you? Deaf? More beautiful, that no man might resist you? Will you answer, or shall I let my creativity suggest more?"
Ifiro shudders again, and the kyria looks nauseated. "I have seen enough already."
She turns to go, and the prisoner flings herself at the floor after her. She lands on her shoulder, her arms still bound behind her, and squeals, "No! Don't go! I'll tell you anything! Just don't leave me with her!"
Kyria Orevo pivots around. The two archons hadn't gone far ahead, and they turn to look through the door as the kyria demands, "Who hired you?"
"Tyr Mesos!" the prisoner cries out, sobbing.
All the Laosians freeze.
Lauryn had expected it might be something big, even a Tyr, but to actually hear it makes her ears shoot up. She's sitting straight before she knows it. "Continue," she bids the prisoner quietly.
"You lie. What kind of fools do you take us for?" Kyria Orevo shakes off her surprise and stomps to the prisoner's side.
Ifiro shakes her head. "It's true! I swear it's true! I am no traitor! I did the tyr's bidding."
Skotonys is rooted by the door. It's the first time Lauryn ever recalls seeing him surprised by anything. Ulifi stalks inside and kicks the prisoner in the stomach. "Silence! Do not sully the tyr's name with your lies!"
Lauryn, who finds herself, for once, calmer than any of the present Laosians due to her outsider nature, asks, "Do you have any proof?"
Ifiro curls up around her stomach. "I swear it," she whimpers, "By the order of dynatos ypertos tyron .... "
And Lauryn realizes what she's been missing. The Tyr of Mesos isn't just a tyr: he's the tyron, the one to whom all the other tyrs pledge allegiance.
"Of course it can't! It's not true!" Ulifi spits.
"Gods forgive me, dynatos ypertos tyron forgive me, it's true," the prisoner babbles, whimpering. "It was a secret, the highest secret, no orders, nothing to implicate him, dynatos ypertos tyron, I'm sorry."
Caught up in her magic and all that has happened, the sudden insight in to the situation causes Lauryn to inhale sharply. The situation isn't as bad as she had feared -- it's worse. One Tyr as an enemy of Notios would have been serious, to have the tyron act against her tyr is a dire situation that she can only begin to grasp. "We must have proof, confirmation -- what have you? Speak," Lauryn orders, pushing while the man is vulnerable, before she loses her grip.
"He wants war," the prisoner whimpers. "Conquer Apagorevo, finish what his grandfather started. I've got -- "
"Silence! I'll not listen to this slander!" Ulifi draws his sword again with one swift motion, aiming it for the prisoner's chest.
"It's too big to be a lie -- fah!" Lauryn swipes a hand through the air, redirecting her settled isityros curse against the Archon, hoping to stun him long enough for the others to intervene. She hasn't time to craft anything detailed, so she uses what she has available, and hopes the Archon fears it enough for it to stick.
Yellow fur, feline features and a feminine appearance settle over the archon's formerly vulpine ones, but either it's not enough to stay his hand or he doesn't realize what's happened until his sword has already descended. This time his aim is true: his blade sinks through Ifiro and into the floor beneath her. Him, as the curse melts away from the prisoner. Blood bubbles out Ifiro's mouth; he sucks a tortured breath into punctured lungs.
Ulifi's hand releases the hilt of her sword as she reels back, staring at her yellow-furred hand. "What?" she screeches. "What have you done?"
"I have failed to stop you," Lauryn answers, sounding tired. She puts her gesturing hand to her temple, and begins the process of willing the isityros to depart -- they've fed enough for today. "Stand still and relax, if you would, Archon."
Ulifi growls, feline tail lashing. She doesn't look like she's relaxing at all, but the curse lifts away from him just the same. The shadows recede from the room, swirling and gathering around Lauryn, diving back into her. The false wind that stirred her saluki dies and the glow fades from her eyes. Lauryn thinks for a moment that it's gone, but the pressure of magic lingers in her head. Oh. And the fur on her hand has turned golden.
Lauryn regards her hand a moment and frowns, turning it over as she inspects it with a placid, bemused expression. "This may actually be an improvement," she decides, feeling worn out. Gaze flicking to Ulifi, she asks, "Archon Ulifi, are you a spy? Sworn to the Tyron above Tyr Notios?"
"You are mad," Ulifi snarls at her. "I'll not answer your prodotis questions."
"Will you answer mine?" the kyria asks.
That takes a little of the fight out of him. He wipes the blood from his blade on the dead prisoner, and bows stiffly to the kyria. "I could not tolerate such slander from a traitor. Surely you cannot believe that ridiculous story?"
"Surely I cannot get another one from a dead man," the kyria replies, drily.
Lauryn decides to let the kyria handle things for now, as she hasn't the energy to push the matter and she isn't even sure she can push it and retain propriety. Instead, she looks at her hand for a moment she she listens attentively, then asks Archon Skotonys, "Do I look like a Yemenos woman, Archon?"
Ulifi takes a deep breath, and exhales. He bows again, deeper. "I apologize for my rash actions and my indubordination, lady kyria. I submit myself to your correction."
Skotonys nods in answer to Lauryn's question.
The kyria holds out her hand. "Give me your swords, archon." Without a word, the archon unbuckles his sword belt and passes it to her. "Go to ... whatever quarters the Yemenos see fit to provide you with. And if it is a oubliette, accept it without complaint. I will deal with you later."
Though pleased with the kyria's decision, Lauryn is too tired to feel much about it. Instead, she finds herself more and more interested in her hand, and what it means. She had used this curse to ruin a man, yet on her, it feels entirely different. She hadn't realized just how much she always wanted to be someone other than who she is, and here she is, looking at her own transformed -- albiet largely illusory -- body. She finds herself suddenly blinking rapidly, and stands unsteadily. "Excuse me, Kyria, Afentis, Archons -- I am tired and ... I ... I need to ... " Before she realizes it, she's heading for the door.