Usoa had done little after the excitement of this morning's meeting, which was something of a norm for her. She had returned to her dwellings just as quickly as she could, eager to disrobe of her ‘formal’ garments and return to her normal duties. A few of the younger witches flitted about the space of the ‘clinic’ providing what minor medical attention was needed to its various residents as their patron stalked through on eight tentacles, only stopping briefly to free herself of the pants and shirt she had been adorned with; dropping them to the floor in a haphazard pile of fabric that was to be someone else's problem.
There was little in the way of work to do at the moment though, and Usoa found herself...bored. As much warmth she may have felt for Alexina, there was something to be said about her propensity towards isolation and peace. It left people like Usoa desperately under worked. The weird amalgam of eldritch and human lifts herself slightly, surveying the clinic momentarily as she tried to run through a mental checklist of things that her ‘toys’ needed, only coming up with rest for her efforts.
With an annoyed huff she slunk deeper into her clinic, arms reaching into a carved out hole in the wall near a back corner and pulling her up with (to observers) looked to be an unnatural grace. Inside there was a rats nest of blankets, most due for a cleaning but not overly so, discarded books and wooden toy people of various occupations with long faded paint.
She regarded the toys silently as she pulled the covers over herself, a brief moment of bliss shooting through her as she felt her own residual body heat still trapped firmly in its folds. She couldn’t remember where they had come from nor why she liked them. They were crude approximations of people, their faces little more than spheres with small pointed wedge like noses to complete the image. All most all posed in the same stilted fashion, arms at their side and legs straight, with only the occasional lifted arm holding aloft some icon of their profession to distinguish those of greater standing. Bakers and Coopers stood mirrored by Soldiers, holding aloft their rolling pins and hammers in mocking salute of their bladed counter parts.
As sleep began to worm its way in her chest she wondered if they appreciated the insult before brushing the thought away. Wood was not of the thinking sort. She allowed an arm to brave the cold air outside of her nest and let it flick a wooden soldier to its side before returning, coiling her tentacles around her tightly as she gave up fighting the urge to nap.
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It was dark by the time she awoke, knowing more from the sounds of deep breathless sleep that echoed into her hole from the clinic than what the light of the room. She rumbled darkly as she turned in the covers, attempting to banish her consciousness away so she could enjoy the warmth of her bed for a few hours longer with little success. After a few fruitless moments she admitted defeat, dragging her body from her nest in a tangle of limbs and blankets.
She allowed the blankets to fall from her body and pool on the floor beneath her, knowing full well she probably should clean it up herself but struggling to find the motivation to do so. Someone else would clean it, they did more often than not atleast. She yawned and stretched the whole of herself, tentacles curling and uncurling at odd angles from her body seemingly enjoying the act as much as the rest of her.
Cold air rushed over her, a pleased murmur escaping her as goosebumps erupted along her skin as she entered the final stages of waking up. She allowed her feet a rare moment of contact with the floor, a final shuddering spike of cold rising up through her as she made tentative contact with the floor. She wandered slowly and quietly over to a window, careful not to disturb the sleep of what few patients she had, gazing out over the darkened courtyard of Castle Bloodrose.
Alexina was standing sentinel at the gates, posture firm and solemn as the castle she claimed as her own. Though not an alien sight, it was rare enough to warrant a weak bubble of interest from Usoa. Alex was, for the most part, not a creature of whimsy. If she was at the gates, it was not to entrance herself in the joy of a cold nights air. She was either waiting patiently for something or something very foolish was about to walk into her. Either option struck Usoa as more interesting than spending another night doing approximately fuck and all in her own quarters.
She turned from the window and headed towards the door of her chambers, not bothering to worry about dressing. It was late enough that what few children that called Castle Bloodrose home were long since asleep so those who may see her would be more than capable of handling the sight, if not entirely used to it by this point.
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As she pushed the door to the courtyard open, two things caught Usoa’s attention. First, the acrid rot of a Death’s Fog hung weakly in the air. Too weak to have been close or recent, but it was there all the same. Usoa thanked her lucky stars she had been asleep when it rolled in, feeling herself gag against the smell slightly, having hated that stench for far longer than she could remember.
The second thing was that Alexina was no longer alone, her...child? Ward?....Welp? Whatever Taran was to Alex, he was there, his words falling weakly from his mouth after a embrace by the older witch. At his flank was another, less familiar face. Red hair flowed smoothly over soft curves, quiet literally red and quite literally flowing Usoa noted.
Swallowing the sour taste of the Death’s Fog out of her mouth, Usoa pushed outward into the night air. Fingers of too cold air crawling along the length of her spine before spread out across the rest of her skin as she approached the trio, the awkward lilting gait provided by her extra limbs being surprisingly quiet when she willed it to be.
”Taran brings us another?” She says as she gently steps past Alexina, eyes tracing over the young man’s frame in search of injuries. Her eyes spied the growing purple black stain of his wrist, swollen and angry with neglect.
”And hurts themself in the process…” She added after a quick glance to Celosia showed she was perfectly fine, sans a few minor scrapes here or there.
Usoa grabs the fabric of Taran’s sleeve, raising the injured arm up as she closed the gap between them to examine the extent of the damage.
”We know you know how to make a splint.” She said her tone carrying its normal levels of indifference, though only slightly higher with the mild aggravation one might expect from an exasperated maid walking in on a muddied floor. Celosia and Alex were treated to the sight of a tentacle sliding back into Usoa’s skin, the ichor black appendage growing smaller and smaller until it disappeared into pale flesh.
It was probably a waste to spend a coil on the boys foolishness, but Usoa doubted she would need all four over the next four days. And if the current state of his wrist was any indication, he could not be trusted to take care of himself properly if given a lesser cure. The fact that she was also a little bored perhaps also influenced the final decision, though she would not let Alexina in on that little fact.
Usoa pulled herself ever closer to Taran, wrapping her arms around his and pressing it firmly in a vertical grip against her chest, angled such that his wrist sat level with her mouth.
”You will hold very still…” She warned darkly, yellow eyes gleaming with both warning and a frightening amount of unvoiced amusement as seven tentacles wavered in the air around her..
”Or We will be doing this again. Less comfortably.”Giving him no time to respond, Usoa bit into the soft swollen flesh of Taran’s wrist, ripping away a not so small chunk of the poor boy in doing so. She allowed herself a moment to enjoy the feel of it all; the soft ball of rolling flesh moving freely in the confines of her mouth like an over ripened piece of fruit, the metallic tang of blood against her tongue and throat, the writhing sense of movement that was slowly making its way up her throat. But she allowed herself ONLY that moment, unhinging her jaw from Taran’s arm to quickly spit the warlocks now useless flesh out before it became a hindrance.
Usoa briefly wondered if this new girl thought the whole situation looked as strange as it likely felt for Taran, but banished the line of thought as quickly as it came when she felt the tentacle emerge from the back of her throat. She clamped her mouth back over Taran’s fresh wound as it crawled forth from inside her and pushed its way into the warlock, a black worm that distended her throat to the point of near asphyxia that dug into the broken flesh of her
victimpatient.
The tentacle snaked its way through Taran’s flesh, pushing vien and bone out of its way with almost no concern for comfort or care as it simply attempted to fill as much of his arm as possible. The skin around the wrist bulged unnaturally, almost doubling in width and threatening to burst for a moment before the invading ‘aid’ of Usoa seemed to find the crampedness equally unbearable and coiling part way up the young man's arm. After that, it seemed to settle and Usoa felt a familiar snap deep in her stomach signaling she’d released the tentacle successfully. She leaned back from her grip on Taran’s wrist, more tentacle flowing out of her throat for a few inches before finally ending with a wet pop.
The hole she had bitten in the warlock was bleeding less now, more a slow weeping wound than the gout of blood it really should be.
”Better?” She asks as she quickly wraps the remainder of the detached tentacle around his wrist before slinking behind him, arms wrapping around his chest as she held him firmly against her. Likely a somewhat...scandalous pose for Celosia, but Taran likely knew how draining his elders methods could be on her patients, so the support was not without merit. That and, despite not being particularly fond of men, Usoa had to admit the night air as...more than she wanted to deal with in her current state of dress. The new girl would be more ideal, but she seemed a tad….flamey for that at the moment.
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”Not a problem!” Sanjin chirped, almost too happily as he casually stabbed the sword into the chest on an oncoming goblin. He really couldn’t help but enjoy all of this...chaos, he supposed. Sure people were dying which sort of sucked the joy out of the whole deal, but people were ALWAYS dying. Saren’s folly, as far as he could tell anyway, had a near perpetual effluvial haze of fatalism hanging about it even in the most joyous occasions. Brutal as this whole scenario was, Sanjin would be a liar if he said that the collective catharsis he felt from the other hunters (...ok. Just him really.) was wonderful.
A loud parade of squawks brought him back to reality, his eyes turning to the noise in unison with the goblins, though more out of confusion than reference for the divine fowl in question. Sanjin could practically feel the goblin hordes collective mass begin to shift away from him and the doctor, eager to recover such a holy beast. He almost laughed again, Flint’s battered and now be-chickened frame wading through the battlefield like the world's worst delivery man being the last thing he’d expected. The doctor was...far less amused, drawing her sword and cutting a clumsy path towards the bowman.
Sanjin followed in her wake, stabbing and crushing what goblins she left in her path of less than stellar sword play. He was about to ask if she wanted him to take the lead when a goblin swiped at her leg as she screamed at Flint. Something...clicked inside the woman and the words on his lips died as it did, his body immediately syncing and feeding off the suddenly vicious aura around the woman.
Whatever it was it felt GREAT. Powerful, animal and almost lustful! And it showed in the doctors sudden, though much improved, blade work. Sanjin let himself feed off the feeling, letting himself be lost in it as he too began to tear into the goblins. Details were becoming fuzzy for him, the sensation of a dull thud resonating through his club or the sleight resistance of his sword on flesh becoming far more meaningful than sight.
Those looking at the spectacle of the two hunters, it must have been hard not to start pitying the goblins (even if only slightly). Caught between two berserking storms of hunters and the object of their devotion, neither maelstrom of painless fury slowing. A cackling howl escaped Sanjin as he drove his sword straight through the wooden slat shield of a goblin, hidden manic eyes sliding over the doctor’s form before he yelled at them.
”HAHA, I fucking love it! What else ya got!? MORE MORE!” He half cackled, whatever plan Flint may have had being lost to a frenzy.
