As usual, Mollymauk met Tasha on the flip-side of the moon lake. Also as usual, he took her on a different route than before. "This is very bothersome you know," he tells Tasha as he leads her into unfamiliar woods. "All so you can't be followed."
"Spies and assassins," Tasha says with mock-knowing, assuming that is the case, but also saying what she thinks Kainudy would have said. She even tries to copy her voice, which is difficult given her head is a lot smaller. "They could get her."
"Well, they could get you," Mollymauk notes, smiling to show pointy teeth. "Mortal flesh is.. rare." There are rustling sounds in the trees, and behind the trunks. The branches arch overhead to form a tunnel. And there are whispers as well.
"They should probably take note I've killed an Ogdoad servant demi-god and am supported by several universal Fundamentals, then," Tasha notes pleasantly. She's not lying, and knowing she has makes trees and whisper seem quaint and a little embarrassing, even if she knows the dangers beyond are very real. Still, she is also one of the dangers, and she takes some comfort in that. "I'll try to be careful, of course."
As they go one, it begins to snow, and whispers become more distinct. There are move glimpses of motion out of the corner of Tasha's eyes as well. "Oh, the nastier faeries wouldn't care," Molly explains. Tasha definitely sees a hand that nearly blends in with the tree trunk it was gripping slide back behind it. The trunk is too narrow to have hidden anything that would have a hand that big though.
Tasha watches the hand without outward reaction, the sense of danger arousing practiced instinct. She knows this world isn't like her universe and the hand reminds her of the Ogdru-hem, with all the terrors they can manifest, even when they have no will to maliciousness. It could be anywhere behind that tree -- or anywhere else -- for all she knows. Whatever the hand is connected to, Tasha can't help but feel malice is part of it, even if Molly hadn't said so. "I see what you mean," she tells her guide.
"There are things here that.. well, there's a reason people are afraid of dark woods, no matter what reality they hail from," Molly notes. "Due to your unusual nature, you may attract more curiosity than usual."
"Something that is common to every reality as well," Tasha quips. She keeps an eye on that hand though, at least until they've moved on. Then, she tries to keep an eye on everything, and make sure she's ready with her sword and shield. "Am I that unusual?"
"You're a hybrid," Molly notes. Then clarifies, "Not in the physical sense, but the spiritual. It's something that fascinates and disturbs those of us that are more spirit than flesh to begin with."
"The spore in my head, or something beyond that?" Tasha does not state she hates that word, hybrid. If she did, she's sure Molly and every other fairy in this reality would use it to annoy her forever.
"Well, that's only part of it," Molly says, and then gets interrupted by a breathy, musical voice singing off to Tasha's left, "Run away till I hear no sound.." A second voice, to her right, continues with, "Run away 'cause I have no choice.." From above comes, "Run away from the haunting noise.." and then from up ahead, "Run away from the bloodhound boys.."
Tasha's brow goes up. "Are we about to be attacked by theater?" She glances around, having already kept an eye on things, but now that the gauntlet may be down, getting ready for the next step. "I've never killed a theater performance before."
"Ah, your presence is stirring things up," Molly says. "And they are politely asking you to hurry along because they cannot control themselves." The purple devil picks up his pace as well.
Tasha dips her head to the shadows in apology. "Then their politeness shall be rewarded. Lets go." And so she hurries along as well.
As they hurry through the woods, the trees become more barren, and the snow is able to get through the leafless canopy. "Who can you trust?" one of the voices asks. But it feels further away. The last Tasha hears is, "Are you.. one of us?" before they're left behind. "I hope we didn't miss the turn.." Molly says, before they both fall through the ground, and end up in the atrium of Kainudy's temple.
Tasha pulls herself up, rubbing her bottom and flapping her wings free of pain and the dust she suspects doesn't exist here. She looks around and sees they've arrived. This is good on a number of levels, not the least of which is the fact she didn't have an answer to the question the singing voice put to her.
"Well, this is as far as I go," Molly declares. "She's told me not to enter the temple proper this time. Is that anyway to treat her officially designated spy, I ask you? She'll be in the garden, probably at her Angst Tree, or whatever it is."
Tasha walks over and pats the satyr-like man's arm. "I appreciate your guidance. Thank you again, Molly. I'll see you ... " She glances off towards the interior of the temple, " ... soon?"
"Hope springs eternal," Molly replies, and backs up until he's vanished into the shadows.
"So does spookiness, I suppose," Tasha remarks to the apparently empty room. She shrugs to herself, stuffs her hands in her pockets, and walks out to find the prison's sole prisoner.
The garden is a maze, but she does have one clue at least: Molly mentioned a tree. Something like that should stand out, eventually. And she does know how to get to the memorial for Cythrawl, the falled Stelya-rhyan.
And so Tasha looks upward for a tree taller than the others. Molly called it an 'Angst Tree,' which suggests a monument or epitaph; some marker to past tragedies, and her experience suggests these are rarely buried out of sight. Memories are created to be seen, after all, so she looks for a tree that wants attention.
That big memorial had benches. And while flying might be taken as being rude, standing on a bench to see over the hedges probably wouldn't be. And doing so lets Tasha spot what might be a white tree with very shiny golden leaves less than a hundred meters away, if distance means anything in this place. There's even a path through the hedge in that direction.
And so Tasha hops off the bench, pays her respects to the statue with a bow, and then hurries along in to the forest. It is a fact of her hooved, cloven feet and long legged anatomy that makes her hurrying look more spritely than the old her would have liked, rather like a cross between a fawn racing and a girl skipping, but the new her at least appreciates that it's cute in a natural-as-in-of-nature sort of way. Nymphish, as Gabriel might say. "Hello? Kainudy?"
The statues in this part of the garden are especially odd, and even include cat-versions of Fnerfs. But another large area is at the end of the path. Now the tree is clearer, and.. less tree-like, somehow. It's made of ivory or some other white, glossy material, and texture looks more like muscle than bark. The leaves are amber-colored crystals, and it even has odd spherical 'fruit' that may or may not actually be attached to the branches. Kainudy is underneath it, and turns towards Tasha when she calls out. "You actually returned," the dragon notes, as if she hadn't actually expected Tasha to return. "Did you test your shield and sword?"
"Yes, and yes," Tasha replies, slowing to a walk before stopping altogether a few feet from the dragoness's head. "I've discovered neither are of much use against physical matter of my reality, that the shield does stop fae, and that no one wants to try being hit with the Yellow sword, not that I can blame them." She glances at the tree a moment, wondering if she should ask, and deciding she isn't sure that she should. "I have returned for further lessons, if you'll teach me."
"First, I'd like to know about your soul-graft," Kainudy says, and gestures to a circular, sandy area ringed by odd rocks, as if offering Tasha a seat.
Tasha find herself ever more glad to sit down, as if the weight of her battles, conflicts, and race in to danger were accumulating exhaustion on her that never quite goes away. She sits down and pulls her legs under herself, cross-legged. She can't exactly kneel, not comfortably, and pulling her legs in might seem too sullen. "You mean the spore in my head?"
"No," Kainudy says, and moves to one side so that she's no longer between Tasha and the tree. "The one to your left."
"My left?" Tasha looks to her left, indulging both the request and her obscurity.
There's nothing to her left, other than her shadow on the sand, which is more to the left and back. It doesn't look quiet right though, to Tasha. There's no light source in front of her to cast it, and it's very dark. It takes a moment to notice that the head is wrong, having a proper beak.
"Oh, her," Tasha says, scootching around to get a better look at her shadow, or rather her shade. She stares long and hard, frowning, and then admits, "It's a piece of the soul of a woman called Blackwings. It's not really her, though. Just a piece."
"Just a piece of a soul is not something trivial," Kainudy. "I have just a piece of another soul and it lets me do fey magic and have a very unusual relationship with metals. And it was once my best friend, in life. Now, tell me about Blackwings."
Tasha's inhale is very long. Long, sharp, deep, and through her nose. She leans back, sitting straighter and looking up at what may or may not be an actual sky.
The young woman then exhales all at once.
"Vartan, female, pirate, victim, ex-lover and the first person I really looked up to who didn't live on The Rake," she says all at once, a bit too fast. "Dead; I killed her about a year ago. I'm not sure. Time is strange now. Stranger now that I'm dead, too. I think I'm rambling. I don't like talking about her." And she gives a little shrug, as if it were no big deal.
"That was very unenlightening," Kainudy complains. "And this is important. Tell me everything. I don't know your past, Tasha. Pretend you're at a bar, you've had too much to drink, the person next to you a blurry blob that may or may not be a coat-rack. But you're going to unload on them. Now, let me be that coat-rack. How did you first meet, and what did it mean to you?"
Tasha releases what might well be a sigh, groan, or just "ugh". Whatever it was, she scoots back around so she doesn't have to look at the shadow any longer. She then realizes she can't look at Kainudy either, not while telling this story, and so does flops back on to the dirt. "Blackwings -- and no I don't know her original name -- was a Vartan woman who lived on my birth world. She was older than me by about fifteen years, and like her name implies, she had black wings. Which is thought to be a omen; it didn't do her much good. She also had green fringes, green eyes, and she looked like a dancer except that the dance she preferred left people bleeding on the floor. She was very charismatic, self-assured, smug, and cruel. Properly, she is Captain Blackwings, of Dagh's Chibix, which translates to something like the Devil's Awful Bug. I was a few years younger than I look now, very different, and she seemed like an exciting and adventurous escape from what seemed like a dead-end life where my captain resented me for being alive. Mostly, she strung me along and got me in to bed. We were never close, not as I understand it now. A few years later a warship I was traveling on encountered her vessel; I boarded with them, found her, and ran her through. She got her dramatic death, the world got rid of her, and the Knights got their woman if not in the way they wanted. Everyone wins." She lifts her hands, almost helplessly, palms up. "Isn't diplomacy wonderful," she adds in a stingingly bland monotone.
"What were your thoughts when you first saw her?" Kainudy asks. "Did she approach you? Did you want to be her? There needs to be something for a graft to connect to, Tasha, and what connection is determines a lot. It isn't always about the last moment you spent together. That first one is usually more important. What impression did she make?"
"She was self-confident, lead what I thought was an exciting and impressive life, she had money, she had power, people loved and feared her. She was everything I wanted to be, and I lusted after her because I have a thing for older women," Tasha admits, now more genuinely throwing her hands up. "She was bigger. Bigger in the sense of being a big deal, a big person, she mattered, and she seemed free. And before you ask, yes I suspected she was using me and yes I knew deep down she was a terrible person and yes I knew she'd probably betray me but I wanted whatever she had and was so badly I ignored it for the chance and because I wanted to believe."
"How did you part? And did you still want all of that when you did?" the dragon asks. "What did she call you in private?"
"I found my own adventure, and by the time we met again, I was bigger than she was, I had traveled the stars, met my Gabriel, founded an organization and had the respect of my peers. She was just a woman then, but I still loved her." Tasha claws at the air, tail flicking not unlike an agitated cat's. "That's why I did what I did. I couldn't keept her safe. I couldn't let her go. I made everyone happy." And her hands fall. She tilts her head up and closes her eyes. "I didn't want what she was because I had it and more. Maybe not her strength or other traits like that, not in the way she had them, but I wasn't a cruel person who flayed people for my own amusement, either. And she called me puppybird." Kainudy then gets pointed at. "Don't ever tell that to Molly." The hand hesitates, then lowers. "Please."
"Do you resent that you had to kill her, or feel like she forced you to do it?" Kainudy asks. "How angry are you right now?"
"Very? I don't know, it's ... " Tasha halts herself, then sits up, turning to Kainudy. She looks angry, ears back and tail flicking, but, there's no heat in her glare. Some reflection of the blankness she sometimes shows lingers, or perhaps she's not mad at the questioner so much as the question. "I wonder. Killing her was hard, but I believed in my choice and still believe in it. And she did, too; I know that now. It was her kind of choice, and I knew it would be. She didn't think I could do it, didn't think anyone actually cared. Maybe didn't care they cared. I don't know. But it was that moment I wondered why I did anything. What was I doing, if not saving people I loved? And who, exactly, was I fighting for? The world? Some strangers, however innocent? Did these people deserve my actions? When did I think it was right to kill someone I loved for the greater world, when it didn't need or want me to? Not that I think the woman I loved was wonderful, she was awful, and part of me liked destroying her, even as i realized I'd never see her again. I resented the choice. I resented the universe for making this happen at all. And I wondered at what I was chosing to do, what the value of trying to save people was, if it cost you peope you loved. And I missed her. I hated knowing the finality of what I'd done; I hated the finality. Does any of this make any sense?"
"Oh, I understand perfectly," Kainudy claims. "How did you end up with a piece of her? It doesn't sound like she cursed you, or meant to haunt you."
"I don't remember all the details, but they needed something from her, a base, and through her link with me they were able to gain it. My world isn't an ordinary world, not even a resettled artifact world from some older Galactic, but a Sifran world -- Xilphrim -- the oldest sentients of my reality, children of the Ogdoad, who bound them. They live still, if barely." Tasha rubs her hands together, as if suddenly cold, and hugs herself. "Five thousand some years ago the modern Galactics mounted an Expedition to these worlds, and so they were trapped for five-thousand more years, losing much of their civilization and technology. Some learned to master the wizardry that lingered on the world, the Sifran-system interface. Magic. Old technology. It can somehow preserve a soul; it can make them. It can split them apart. And so, so can those who can use it, however imperfectly. They used it to get their questions to their local conflict, for their local problem. Except it wasn't local at all, but that's a different story."
"And it stuck to you as a result?" Kainudy asks. "Does it bother you, or have you come to terms with its presence? Is there a benefit?"
"Sometimes it talks to me, in her voice. Mostly to comment, sometimes with advice. Usually, with mockery. It's been quiet now; quiet since I died. I think maybe it realized it has to tell me what it said it would, when I breathed my final breath. What the machine showed her. The Sifran machine under the mountain. I don't think either of us are looking forward to that." Tasha settles back down, laying her head back on her hands. More relaxed now that the worst of it is said.
"How do you feel now?" the dragon asks, like some scaly psychoanalyst.
Tasha wonders why everyone is always so interested in her past, even if she knows the answer and also knows she's just being obstinate in the face of the uncomfortable. "About the whole thing? About her? In general?"
"I mean how do you feel right now, not about anything in particular," Kainudy asks. "What is your emotional state?"
"A little annoyed. Angry, if not as angry as I had been. Distant, which I've felt ever since I died, sometimes more than others. less s now, since you're asking me to recall what happened. A little like I'm drifting. And the more I think about how I feel, the weirder it feels to me, because I keep comparing it to who I am now, what I've done, where I am, how far I've gone. How big everything is. Life and death. I feel like I wonder what it means, and I feel like it means everything." Tasha spreads her hands in a shrug. "And it feels like a long time ago, to someone else, to me, I've moved on, I haven't, she doesn't matter, she does, and so everything else." She chews her lip now, brows furrowing.
"This is something you should try to work out on your own, but part of your training will require you be directly dealing with Blackwings," Kainudy says. "There are going to be times where accomplishing your goal is going to have unforeseen, even catastrophic consequences. Ones that can be extremely personal. I'm not going to say you need to be prepared for that, however. Because you can't be. You may not even be aware of them until after the fact."
"I know. I don't mean to sound conceited, but it's not as if I'm new at this. I am the who-knows-what-iteration of a soul-ghost's attempt to save the people she loves, who succeeded, and then kept on trying to do it, and now I am the second iteration of myself. My Gabriel is haunted by his mistakes; Lacci is haunted by her future. Hakeber is haunted by everything; Katie is haunted by the sense of emptiness. I attract people who are missing something." Tasha reaches up and rubs her face, feeling very old for having related what she did. The infinity she's brushed upon sits at the back of her mind like an old friend, understanding and familiar. "I know. And I know I can't know."
"Persephone likes broken people," Kainudy claims. "Now, I've sacrificed a lot of people, and at least one entire world, to achieve a goal. But I knew I was doing that ahead of time. It was down to strategy and cold probability. And I was forced to return to a world I killed to witness that last of its people die. That.. nearly broke me for good. But what finally did it was the last war. It wasn't even my war, I just wanted to rescue a friend. I left the world I'd finally put down roots on. The world where I had.. essentially a daughter. My living castle. She was very precocious. When I became wary of an ambitious species that was building their own galactic empire, and had Kraken, the first and most powerful of the Stelya-rhyan sent to guard that world. My daughter was given control of her, in order to defend the world if needed. But those ambitious idiots instead released something worse, that my friend and her people had to go fight. And I took Kraken to go after them, creating the cannon. Once it was disconnected from that universe though, it was unsynced in time. A hundred years passed while I was firing the bullet. And when I'd breached that prison and destroyed it, I came back to find my new world, and my daughter, had been burned to the bedrock in my absence. Because I took away its only defense. There were less than fifty survivors of my friend's immortal species at the end of it. All of their worlds had been destroyed, all of their children. If I'd stayed, I could have saved some of them."
"But instead, I forbade the Stelya-rhyan from fighting the enemy for that last hundred years, and then slunk off here to fall apart."
Tasha doesn't know what to say to all of that. What can someone say, to such a thing? She realizes comfort has never been one of her strong traits, just as she learned recently she had avoided the people she loved and their problems because she couldn't endure the possibility she may have failed them. And in doing so, did.
And now, maybe she is failing Kainudy by not talking. Tasha takes this to heart and says, "I'm sorry that happened." It really doesn't sound like enough, but she thinks it's better than nothing, which is what she had offered before.
"I was selfish, and rushed ahead without finding out if the enemy still had assets in that universe they could mobilize," the dragon says. "All you need to say is that you will learn from my mistake."
"I can say I will learn from what you told me, but I don't know if I'll make that mistake or not. It's like you said, you can't always see it coming." Tasha reaches up, eyes opening, and then she asks, "Do you ever wonder if there's something more? We are always fighting, it seems like endlessly, all of us. Is the Ogdoad the real enemy? Is it something else?"
"The Ogdoad, the Evpetren, the Sifra," Kainudy lists. "There's always a variation. It's the way the multiverse works. Yet they're all unique to their realities. The Ogdoad have a lot of names. Most of which I cannot pronounce, so consider yourself lucky on that point. But as for fighting, that's generally a choice. For most, anyway."
"Did you know Persephone's universe doesn't have any sentient life? Is this why?" Tasha rolls her head over to look at Kainudy, ears perked.
"Probably so she can have some peace and quiet," Kainudy says. "I once told my friend that immortals create beautiful backgrounds. Be they worlds, universes, or realms. But we also live in the background. It's where we belong. Out of the way. I'm sure Persephone has a beautiful blue background that she doesn't have to worry about. She has a son to raise, no need for other accidental lifeforms clamoring for her attention."
"Sometimes I feel that way. In the background. I used to talk with all the people, I was famous in a minor way, a hero, and then I learned more. I learned the truth. I stepped back, let the others be in the light, kept what I knew in the shadow. It was better that way. And then there's my secret war, and all my knowledge, and all the things the Galactic would rather not know, and I'm in the background out here, too. Or in the shadows; not quite the background. I think sometimes, that's where I'm going, too. In the background. I feel comfortable here," Tasha admits, settling back again. "I come back because it's comfortable here, and because I need to learn. I never used to feel comfortable here, until I died. But, Blue is forever, isn't it? Forever endures; that's why it's a shield? You can't attack with forever, not unless they can't handle it; maybe mortals can be attacked by forever."
"Blue is the color of infinity," Kainudy claims. "Not really, but it sounds poetic and mysterious. Or something, anyway. Now, let's see what your sword can do to someone."
Fighting is safer than reflecting, Tasha decides. Realizes. She is up immediately, looking over. "Yes?"
"Give me a moment, I'm a bit out of practice at this," Kainudy says, and closes her eyes. She seems to be concentrating, and her ears twitch about. Then she opens them and looks past Tasha. "Ah, it still works. Turn around and stab the woman standing behind you."
Tasha watches the concentration and her ears also twitch. When whatever Kainudy is doing finishes and something is here now, Tasha hops to her feet and has her sword in hand. She turns and slices in a wide, upward arc, both hands on the hilt and attacking with all her recent frustration.
The sword slices through the naked, pale human behind her. It almost looks like a younger version of Riddle Smith, with duller (but bigger) hair. The sword leaves a yellow path through the figures torso, which stays there after the sweep. There's no feeling of resistance.. but since the sword doesn't have any mass it does cause any follow-through backlash.
There is, however, a scream from Kainudy.
Tasha stands there with the blade in the air, frozen with precision and curiosity, then she slowly lowers the blade to her side and tilts her head curiously. This ends when there's a scream.
The young woman spins around, sword up, ears forward and eyes wide. "W-what?!"
The dragon is gagging, convulsing.. until she coughs up a sickly yellow stone that sits on the ground and gives off tendrils of vapor that look entirely too animate. It begins to melt almost immediately, bubbling and hissing as it does so. "Glaaagh!" Kainudy chokes. "That is nasty. Do not do that to a flesh and blood person you don't want to condemn to a living hell."
Tasha lowers the sword and it's Kainudy's turn to be stared at with a tilted head. "I could have told you it might be like that," she says in a mixture of apology and accusation. But now she wonders. "What was it like? He's filled with tendrils, you know."
"I've had to deal with soul-poison before, but this is even worse," the dragon replies. "And that was with a buffer. It actually made it through the telepathic link to the remote body. At least I didn't fly into a murderous, feral rage though. So.. no stabbing people. Maybe a poke would suffice to lay them out for.. between a minute and the rest of their lives, probably. Weaker Ogdru-hem might be dissipated though. Most spirits that aren't classed as High Immortals as well."
"As for what it's like," Kainudy says after coughing a bit more. "It feels like death. As in dying, then being aware of being dead, and further being aware of your body rotting away while you're trapped inside of it. Reminds me of the curse of.. some unpronounceable Ogdoad sort. Seeing his visage, or a perfect representation of it turns you into an immortal paralyzed mummy that can only experience terror for all eternity."
"I see." Tasha looks at her sword with a mix of awe and and the mild concern of someone used to meeting horrors faced to face, or whatever servers as such. "But it does work on real people as well as spirits, then. That is useful to know. Low-to-Medium Immortals." She looks up, listens, and frowns deeply. "That sounds awful. I'm sorry. And I haven't met that one; maybe he's with the others."
"Anyway, that's probably just a bit of how Hastur experiences reality," Kainudy says, then comes over to check over the human body. "Persephone gave me this one, from our days of checking out alternate versions of Terra. When I was younger, I had to cobble together ones that barely passed for human. Luckily, humans were a lot uglier at the time."
"They're very strange. Being one was enlightening, but uncomfortable." Tasha turns around to regard the Human remote again, following Kainudy. As she inspects the body, she admits, "I feel sorry for Hastur now."
"To him, this probably isn't horrible," Kainudy notes. "And if it is, he's still a monster for wanting to inflict it on others."
"I wonder about that, sometimes. What does a being who receives so little owe anyone else?" But Tasha's expression doesn't really change at the thought, she's still looking over the Human body. "Maybe he wants to be understood, or not alone. Or, to not be tormented further by what others have. Or maybe he's fine. Or maybe he's a monster." None of the options change her tone.
"It doesn't matter what his motives are, in the end," Kainudy says. "It could just be part of his definition. What matters are the effects on others, and how to keep them quarantined."
"It matters to me, because I have to judge," Tasha explains. "I could say the same thing about a great many beings. There are many sentients I could destroy with the same idea, and have. But I find, often enough, part of the reason and excuse to destroy a very different being is largely that it is very different. The more different, the easier the justification. Or, reversed, the less I can casually destroy a being more like myself. Which is selfish. Which suggests increased reason to be destroyed. It's kind of circular in a way." She then leans forward and pokes the non-reactive body.
"Nothing can destroy Hastur," Kainudy says with assurance. "He exists because there cannot be sapient life without his existence."
"I feel like there's some commentary to that, something about bureaucracy, or maybe how machines work. It's still unfortunate. I wonder why he chose me," Tasha says. She turns to Kainudy and asks, "More lessons? Or do you need to rest?"
"Next time we'll go into shadow manipulation," Kainudy says, then turns and returns to the odd tree. She plucks one of the golden spheres from it and offers it to Tasha. "Fruit from the Tree of Knowledge," she claims, before saying, "Actually it's a way to communicate if you ever need to get in touch with me, regardless of where you are in space or time."
"I thought the Marker did that?" Tasha looks at the fruit, then tries to bite it gently.
"The marker isn't connected to me," Kainudy says. "And just because it looks like toffee doesn't mean you should try to eat it. These are ansibles. What the Stelya-rhyan use to communicate with each other. Also all that's left of my daughter. This tree was the only piece I could recover. So do not lose it or drop it. It's a physical object, with a tiny shared universe inside of it."
Tasha lowers the apple, then her head. She realizes she's still holding the sword, and so lets that fade, too. "I'm sorry for trying to eat the remains of your daughter," she offers, deciding is sounds as lame and embarrassing as it is, and should. "And a universe." She makes a show of buffing it, and then placing it very carefully in her pocket. "I'll keep it safe." She can't quite look Kainudy in the eye, awkward as the matter is.
"You have to sing to it every day or it will explode and destroy the universe," Kainudy deadpans. "Or, just hold it and think a message and I'll probably get it if I'm not doing something else at the moment."
Tasha's ears flick at the joke, which she isn't sure is a joke because she just tried to eat someone's dead daughter and she talked about Blackwings, and her head is a little out of sorts now. "Really? I want to be sure," she inquires, "And I'll keep it in the Artifact Bay. The Niss will find it exciting."
"Now, I need to deal with a headache that could kill several children," the dragon says. "Which will require a hot bath at the very least. So off you go, don't tell Molly of what has transpired here or I'll have to ask for someone else to spy on me who is willing to put in the effort."
"Yes ma'am." Tasha doesn't go though, instead she stands there awkwardly for a long moment, then she walks over and tries to hug Kainudy's snout because dragons are very large and she decidedly is not.
"Mff?" is the response to this. "Next time you'll get to see my bipedal form," the dragon promises. "I can't dance very well in this one."
"Neither can I," is Tasha's response to that. She gives a wiggle-fingered wave, then turns and heads off, just like that.