Another.

[Loviti Obe't']

Loviti spun at the sound of the hooves. The flesh of her forearm started to take on the consistency of melting wax, trying to sever the connection with Galacia before the bull elk struck them down. Loviti jumped in hopes of getting out of the way, but the fusion of their arms was still so much that she was not able to get far off of the ground.

The jagged rack of the elk’s antlers connected hard with Loviti’s torso. The boney prongs pierced Loviti’s flesh and...as the beast’s antlers broke against her, Loviti’s pelvis shattered. Loviti screamed as she spun in the air, her arm tearing from its socket. The two women’s connection ripped apart; Loviti’s arm a nub at the forearm...Galacia’s arm now longer, but without a hand.

Loviti landed hard on the dirt-packed road. The air rushed from her lungs and she gasped for a breath. She blinked her stinging eyes. She quickly started the repair process. Her breasts and hips started to shrink as her arm extended...her hand would return in moments...and claws would extend from it, as they already had from her hand that remained. Her hipbone began to reknit itself within. She worked her body furiously...trying to restore herself as quickly as possible.

[The Baie]

At the moment of impact, Baie already started to shift, preparing for his next attack on Loviti. He would have to be swift, even if Loviti was just a Gatherer. If she was a Sentinel... He left that thought alone. He would have to face that reality, if it came.

The clefts of Baie’s front hoofs split up his legs as they started to thicken. He rotated back onto his back legs and his body weight shifted so that he could balance upright. His body began to take on a more humanoid appearance again, the antlers retracting into his skull. His front hoofs continued to shift until they became large, black claws, like those of a scorpion. His cheeks split, giving way to black mandibles, giving him the appearance of a massive, clawed ant.

Baie closed the distance between himself and Loviti. He reached out with his claws, attempting to grab the woman by the neck and middle.

[Galacia Tarin]

Though she knew the impact was coming, it still shook her greatly. The other woman was torn, quite literally, from her, flying far into the air to land with a sickening thud on the dirt packed road.

For a moment, the fingerless nub at the end of her arm startled her. Within moments, the remenants of Loviti's limb began to melt and slide away from the flesh that was her own arm. She had seen it before, when Baie had changed forms and lost a part of himself. She had seen it when Baie...she shook the thought from her head, looking then toward the rapidly transforming elk.

If there had been any doubt in her mind, it was gone at that moment. It was Baie. He had come to kill Loviti. She had no delusions that he had come to save her. In fact, she was fairly sure he had waited until Galacia had proven enough of a distraction for Baie to catch Loviti off guard.

As the beast that was Baie closed on Loviti, Galacia took those precious moments to prepare. A series of strange clicks and hisses issuing forth from her lips as she watched the impending clash.

[Loviti Obe't']

Loviti merely clenched her eyes...it was all she could do before Baie was upon her. His initial attack had taken her offguard and she needed to mend what was broken if she was to take on Baie. She would fall back on her self-defensive tactics...and hope that the Yzerain had developed newer processes since Baie had left.

Loviti braced herself.

[The Baie]

Baie's claws clamped down on Loviti's neck and midsection like black vices. He lifted her into the air and started to shake her like a ragdoll, hoping to shatter her spine or, if she could withstand the merciless throttling, he would choke her to death. He cared little of how she would die...just that she would.

He knew her next attack...he could feel it coming. That's why he took on the hard, chitinous exoskeleton around his grip of her. He waited.

[Loviti Obe't']

And like clockwork quills shot from every pore of Loviti's body. Long, thick spines like those of a porcupine. Some of the quills merely slid aside, unable to penetrate the hard shell of Baie's claws, others though, directly under the pincers, managed to shoot straight through the exoskeleton and into the soft, sensitive skin beneath.

Baie's shaking of her was violent, her whole body felt like it was ripping and tearing under his grip...her brain felt as if it were rattling in its skull. She deperately built the muscles around her back and neck, trying to protect her spinal column from snapping.

[The Baie]

Baie quickly broke down the quills, absorbed them into his body almost instantly. Although Loviti was covered in thick, sharp spines on her entire body, Baie's assimilation of the quills left Loviti with two rings of unprotected flesh; one around her middle, the other around her neck.

Baie's pincer-like mandibles spread wide, revealing the sharp, hooked curve of a beak beneath, looking like that of a parrot. Baie claw also opened, releasing its hold on Loviti's neck. He continued to hold her tight around her torso, however. Gravity made Loviti twist slightly in the clawed grip that held her. Baie lifted her high, nearly upsidedown; her head hanging just before Baie's open maw. He moved his head forward, pincers closing behind the back of her neck to make it harder for her to escape. His open beak then moved to wrap around her bared neck, freshly cleared of quills.

[Loviti Obe't']

Loviti screamed... Baie had forseen every move she could have made. She was stuck. She was done.

She cursed Baie as she screamed for him to stop.

[The Baie]

The flesh of Loviti's neck parted like warmed butter under the edge of a sharpened blade. Blood filled Baie's mouth, washing his hard, black tongue with the taste of iron. His bill paused a moment as it built up pressure around Loviti's spine and then her bones shattered, sounding like a branch torn from a tree. Blood gushed from Loviti's headless corpse. The head merely fell to the dirt with a hollow thud, her mouth still looked as though it was screaming, but its severed larynx made such an act impossible.

Baie paused a moment and then dropped the body beside Loviti. He looked down at the woman's head...watching her jaw work, opening and closing her mouth. Loviti's wide eyes looked around rapidly...desperately...but it was too late. Soon...they stilled...and Loviti Obe't' was dead.

Baie's form shifted and altered...pincers retracting, exoskeleton absorbing...until he looked a man again...a simple man. He looked ordinary...one you would not notice under normal circumstances. He turned to look at Galacia, weighing her in his silence.

[Galacia Tarin]

Ebon eyes had not for an instant left the battle which had raged for an eternity in her eyes. It had been apparent to her from the onset that Loviti was outmatched. Galacia had never seen Baie defeated, save for one foul incident. One that would live in her mind forever.

As the eyes of the man, since he was indeed a man once more, turned upon her the demoness was unsure of how to react. A part of her screamed for her to run. Logic told her that even if she did run, the moments she had spent considering the option had given Baie enough time to thwart her.

Still...there was that part of her that knew him as friend. The only one she had ever really known. Part of her wished that back. The void of her gaze rested squarely now on the man before her.

"And so you have defeated her, Baie. How shall you proceed?"

How much of his mind had returned to him? How much control did he possess? Were they really even, after all this time?

"Will you kill me now?"

[The Baie]

Baie could smell the initial pangs of fear waft off of Galacia as her mind battled with indecision. Her voice came out strong and sure...measured...as was her way.

"Kill you? Again?" Baie snickered at Galacia. "No."

He turned his attention from the dreamwitch to look down at Loviti's bisected corpse. The quills seemed to melt from Loviti’s body, her body slowly shifting by itself back to her natural form. "But what will I do...? I will gather her. And I will continue to gather." He looked back at Galacia. "You very nearly made me a god once, Galacia...but I could not control it. Soon...I will be the true Yz-born. It has been prophesized."

Baie returned his gaze to Loviti...but she was no longer Loviti...her hair was red, her nose large and hooked, cheekbones strong. She was a C'ervený; the characteristics of that family were so strong. Baie knelt beside the head. His hands reached out to caress freckled cheeks. He didn't know the young woman's first name. She could barely be 18 years old. Baie wondered silently if he played with the dead girl’s brothers or sisters...aunts or uncles...mother or father. The corner of Baie's mouth started to twitch. He flinched to stop the involuntary tick.

Baie closed his eyes for a moment and then slid his right index and middle fingers into the girl's eye sockets, above her eyes. His fingers slowly slid behind the eyes, popping them from the chambers that housed and protected them. He held them gingerly in his hand for a moment...and then with a quick yank severed the optical nerves. He rose to his full height, holding the girl's eyes in his hand. He turned to Galacia.

"And you?" His voice was soft for a moment...almost remorseful. The tone did not repeat, however, when he asked again. "What of you?"

[Galacia Tarin]

The dreamwitch watched him work. No emotion was called forth from his actions, save for perhaps a sense of respect for the effeciency in which he worked. Emotion was never something that had troubled either of them, so long ago.

As his words flowed to her, Galacia took a long look at the man, not recognizing the particular face he wore in this moment. It was that of one gathered long after, or long before, their time together. There was a connection to him, despite his form, as there had always been. A recognition that went beyond the physical form.

His moment of mocking passed over her, there had been enough distrust between them for those many months after his death. She would like to see it end now. With a cold smile she nodded.

"Aye, I suppose if you had wished me dead, you would have left me dead."

The girl's eyes dangled from Baie's fingers like some sort of morbid jewels. The sightless orbs hailing the end of yet another of those who would hunt that which would not be killed.

"As for what I will do..."

The demoness turned her back on him then, pushing at one of the rotted apples with her bared foot. It was either an act of trust, or a very foolish move.

"...I am not certain. I had something here for a time, but it has gone. Perhaps it is time for me to move on again."

A soft shrug of sensuous shoulders. Long fingers toying with a soft ebon coil of hair.

"We had something once, Baie. Something that benefitted us both. If you still needed a confidant, a partner..."

She trailed off, before the laughter rose from her throat. The ageless sound of glass crushed beneath a heavy bootheel.

"But we both know you did not come here looking for someone to work with. It was only coincidence that brought us together on this road."

That was not quite true. Galacia had followed Loviti here. The demoness knew that Baie would find the woman eventually. She had hoped to be near when it happened.

"I could help you...if you wished it."

The words spoken with the same confidence that seemed to ooze from the woman in every moment. Even though Baie was different from all of those who had come before, and after, she still retained her cool demenaor. An inky gaze was cast over one shoulder, studying him once more, as she fell silent.