Yiv: A Gathering Group
Yiv moved her way through the grass, low to the ground, serpentine, stretching herself out as long and flat as she could. Gliding along in pursuit of the strange new woman who’d appeared out of a portal. Yiv found nothing particularly interesting about her. But it was best to hide by staying just behind the woman rather than risk being seen slithering through the grass. The largest disadvantage of this form was she couldn’t see very well, and couldn’t call up her powers to track her ‘sibling’ or whatever it was that felt like another shard of her ‘father’ but to answer that question she had to find it. And this woman just so happened to be going in the same direction. “Fortuitous.” Yiv thought, though she didn’t have a mouth she knew she would be smiling, calling up such a complex human word from the memories she’d ‘borrowed?’ ‘taken?’ it didn’t really matter, their old owners weren’t using them anymore. She could hear the woman mumbling to herself, but wasn’t quite sure what she was saying; it seemed to be in a language she didn’t speak, aside from a few words that seemed to be ones used often enough anyone paying attention would pick up on them. Though with not a bit of context even the words Yiv could pick up on didn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things. Emotions though Yiv knew, or knew how to feel and how to feel them on others. And this strange short elf woman, shorter than any Yiv have seen anyway, well besides children, but she wasn’t a child. Yiv knew the woman was nervous and afraid. Yiv was pretty sure she wasn’t afraid of the dark, because if she was she’d use a better light spell. As it was she was barely holding a candle's worth of light, a candle might even be better, at least a candle doesn’t waste mana.
The odd woman stopped in the road suddenly, stiff as a board, Yiv had to rotate her body, shifting her shape slightly from something utterly wormy, to something more sluggy. The backs of two people came into view between some of the grass. One supremely tall, not freakishly so, and clearly not something orcish or giant-kin, but very much taller than most humans she’d seen, beside the tall figure was one shorter, barely taller than his underarm, but still a head taller than the woman she’d followed here. “So many odd people today.” Yiv thought. She felt it before it even happened, a fizzling feeling in the air, zappy and tense. A pull on The Weave. The duo spun in a flash, magic ready, the tall one, a man able to hold magic with no focus. The other a woman with white hair and a staff tipped with an icy silver light. But the magic the man held, Primal, that was him, her sibling. How had he learned to take human shape so well? Sure he looked odd, but he wasn’t freakishly so, and clearly the woman he was with was either brainwashed or didn’t fear him. Stranger still.
“FRIEND!” the strange short woman shouted unprompted, and she dropped her own staff, and repeated “Friend.” calmer this time. Then showed them her shoulder.
“How odd.” Yiv thought “Humans are strange.”
Some small conversation when back and forth between the three before the moan, rocked on her heels a bit and shook it off before digging into her satchel pulling out a stack of papers, and shakily handing them over to the other woman, who read over them, the man meanwhile was maintaining two high level spells at once, he had a lot of focus and mana control. She watched the smaller woman closer, she’d seemed more startled after making long eye contact with the man, it made sense. She was looking into a fraction of something beyond herself. But the man, in a fluid movement swooped down with one hand, taking the woman’s staff from the dirt and offering it to her. The woman took it back as if it might suddenly turn into a snake at her touch. But it didn’t.
“Okay.” The man finally spoke, his voice not dominating but could command a room. Eventually the group continued and so did Yiv. Following them for what felt like hours but likely was only half to three quarters of an hour before more shapes met them on the road. A stranger man, about as tall as her ‘sibling’ but giant fuzzy ears.
Another tense moment of people meeting on the road. Her sibling putting up his hands asking to not make this a fight. A small child that was with the tall-eared man screamed to not fight, but the man was already in protective mode, and the two women were already casting spells. Her ‘sibling’ acted fast, faster than Yiv thought possible without casting a spell to do so, slapping the tips of the two staves skyward, sending whatever their intended outcome to be pitifully into the air. To fizzle somewhere overhead. And he spat a string of words that in her language meant ‘tower shield’ a thin film of magic appeared before her ‘sibling’ that looked like a sheet of glass the same color as his glowing eyes. The words affected all the humans around them. The small child vomited, the tall-eared man stopped dead in his tracks, the other shorter woman doubled over as if she would follow the little girl in losing what she’d eaten, and the woman with large glasses swayed on her heels like she’d gotten more used to it but still felt its ill effects.
Once everyone had lost some steam the ‘sibling’ spoke again. “For The Lady’s sake, stop. All of you.” the male elf said. “Let’s just try talking.”
“Okay…Talk…” the tall eared man said.
They talked, they talked for a long time before they all started walking as a group. Yiv didn’t know what they’d talked about but it didn’t matter they were moving and now it would be even harder to contact her ‘sibling’ she’d have to follow and wait. And follow she did, until they stopped. She watched them all set up two separate camps. “Well that’s good, might make things easier.” she thought. She watched her ‘sibling’ unpack something, a blanket, maybe? Then vanished into the ground shortly after the glasses woman did the same. And when he vanished she couldn’t feel him anymore. Did she lose him? Did he just fall into a portal and she missed her chance? No… she could still hear him. Heard him talking to the woman in whispers. A secret? Yiv liked secrets but she couldn’t get close, maybe she could find more secrets and trade them for a chance to talk to her sibling. Her brother.