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SONG WITH SCENE: The Breaking of the Shell - Hunter as a Horse

Stepping out from under the shadow of Utopia Academy, Leylah surveyed the night sky.
“Be careful with those cases, those are fragile.”
She passively chastised the attendants who were helping groggily haul what she would need to build a Funkazan shrine. She had been granted permission to establish a temple to their religion in one of the adjacent buildings on campus which would serve her and her fellow Funkzans. Frankly, even if they hadn’t given her permission she would have found a way, rules be damned. Once all the sleepy attendants had finished depositing the crates and boxes into the dusty unused one-room building, Leylah perused the neglected wooden chairs and admired the lovely stonework beneath all the grime.

I will require this space to be cleaned thoroughly. But these servants are much too weak at this hour. Hmm. A problem for another day. She thought to herself.

One look at the moon through the arched window told her she had a half hour before midnight, so she got to work unboxing the essentials and assembling the basics of Hisada’s altar. Luckily his temples weren’t as flashy as some of the other gods, like Haza or Aimra’a. That would have taken hours to assemble. For now, she was grateful for the god of sacrifice’s simplicity.

When she had finished placing the sacrificial vessel into the pedestal, she gave the space one final lookover with a sigh and a smile. This would do. She had made altars to her gods in worse places with fewer resources. In fact, this was probably one of the finest places she has had to adapt to outside of her kingdom in this fashion. Just thinking of the places she had to scour for sacrifices worthy of her god sent gooseflesh across her arms, and she drew her robes tighter to chase the feeling away. A sudden tingling up the back of her spine had her turning towards the door, the windows, and any potential line of sight that could be causing her to feel watched. It was a niggling at the back of her mind, a warrior's sense that she had learned to hone. But perhaps she had angered Niat Qatila to be suffering from so many false visions since the war was over. Quiet moments often made her feel haunted in this way, and she almost suspected that the sounds of battle could soothe her, but that was crazy talk. She wanted peace, that’s why she was here, at Utopia.

Shaking out her thoughts of feeling watched, Ley took the gauzy fabric from the crates that had been used to pad the objects in transport and hung them as makeshift curtains for now. This blanketed the room in darkness and girded her from prying eyes. Yes, that was better. Dusting off her hands on the temporary blinds, she felt the time was nigh, and went to the smallest of the containers left, a small leather trunk. The well worn latch clacked open after she turned the key then replaced the tiny jeweled piece back among her layered necklaces and dropped the length of chain down the neckline of her robes. The secure space for such a key had grown more crowded over the last year since her figure became fuller following the end of the war. She suspected this was due to inactivity and less travel; she would need to train harder. She shimmied the key farther into her bosom then withdrew a crystal bottle from the nearly full trunk before her. The inside of the case glittered with dozens more just like it in different shades, all the same size of vial. She held it up to the limited light that streamed past one torn corner of the makeshift curtain in a beam of moonlight. The diamond colored bottle, corked with a gem glistened and sent vibrant fractured light onto the walls around her as she twisted it, examining the copious fluid inside. Then, she turned from the light and faced the blackened wood surface that beheld symbols and imagery of her land and cast the bottle into the sacrificial vessel atop the altar. Next, she reached for the dried herbs bottled on the shelf she had just stocked, and measured out half a palm’s worth before sprinkling it in overtop. Finally, she withdrew a sealed pitcher and poured water into the basin. Only one step left.

She didn’t need to check the placement of the moon to know that it was time. Leylah felt an itch in her skin as if Vatuu, her spirit guide, was already reaching out to consume a part of her soul in place of her belated payment. But as long as she kept up her nightly sacrifices of the spirits she had managed to capture, she would never have to feel what that was like. She couldn’t imagine the sensation of losing part of her soul if she failed, but Ley was in no hurry to discover it.

Leylah stretched out her hands above the vessel, palms downcast toward the basin. A spiritual focus washed over her like a trance that she gave herself over to. Eyes closed, she began chanting quietly in the Funkazani language, cloak billowing around her as she tipped her head skyward to her gods. As the dark haired woman muttered her prayers, an orange fire seemed to be drawn out of her hands and into the bronze pot beneath her palms, igniting the liquid inside which started circulating clockwise of its own volition. Lashes fluttered to reveal the milk white that remained beneath her lids as her palms shook. A sucking noise whispered its conclusion inside the basin as if drained into nowhere. Only an empty dry diamond bottle remained uncorked at the bottom of her altar bowl. A sigh escaped her and the once held aloft arms fell to her sides, eyes returning to normal. Looking into a seemingly empty corner, Leylah called out.

“Well? Don’t just lurk over there.”
She crossed her arms and cocked a brow waiting.

After a pregnant pause, a ghastly cloaked figure that had chains dragging off its’ form across the stones birthed itself from the wall and floated towards the expectant young woman. Compared to the new figures’ stature she appeared every bit as young as she was, a mere 18. Averting her eyes from the ugly creature, arms still crossed she appeared irritated with its’ company.

“We both know you don’t savor your meals, what took so long? I’d like to get on with unpacking in my room, I have many outfits to plan for the first week here.”
The figure leaned towards her turned away face, mockingly crossing its’ decaying arms to mimic her posture before it wheezed dust and cobwebs toward her with a blast of screeching laughter.

"Whooo is to say I haven’t taken up-" dusty wheeze "New hobbies? Perhaps I liked the taste of that one enough to… try."
The creature tilted its head just far enough to the side to seem inhuman as it breathed out the last word.

A bead of sweat threatened to escape the tense woman’s hairline the closer this thing leaned toward her face. She turned on her heel and strode farther away to lean down and rest her hands on the back of a wooden chair she strategically placed between her and the apparition.

“Well, use your next free hour for your hobbies would you? I have things to do, and new classes begin tomorrow. So. Hurry. Up.”

Leylah gritted out the final words as her grip on the old wood released a stressed creak under the pressure.

Wordlessly the figure straightened to its full height and reached into its drooping sleeve to withdraw an object. It was a 20 faced die, which the figure cast noisily to the stones by slowly turning its nearly skeletal palm over to let it fall. The mysterious die bounced across the pavers, and each jump of the blurred orb had Leylah’s attention more and more hyper fixated on which face it would reveal when it stopped. After what felt like an eternity, the movement slowed and it stilled to reveal a number on its skyward surface. 7. This was new to her, but who was to say it was not an adjacent number that appeared to mean the same result? Like for 1 through 4, she had discovered after a month or so of this nightly routine that those numbers all meant the same power in varying strengths, the 4 seemed to work more powerfully than the 1, but maybe she had imagined that. But what was 7? She would need to test its limits and properties before noting the outcome. Her tensed form did not yet relax though.

"OoOOo… 7, how curious." Rattling inhale "Now excuse me, I have outfits to plan and… hobbies to find and eat."

And with a chain-rattling flourish the mostly visible creature swept his cloak and vanished into the ether along with his demonic dice. Ley sighed and drug her palm down her face in exasperation at the wraith’s comments. Remembering her undiscovered 7, Leylah quickly looked at her palms and examined them for any sense of fire. Then, she dove deep into herself to find that well of magic and called it forth. A brilliant red fire emblem appeared suddenly, hovering just above her palm in a circle that was written in the old world Funkazani text. Too small and too old to read for her. She never bothered to learn all those ancient texts because it was quite boring to her but she assumed the text’s age had to do with that undearly-departed dustball’s original age or something. She had no clue how old he was, and she vaguely remembered that he had mentioned being incredibly well preserved all things considered when she had questioned his haggard appearance. Yikes that meant this mummy was truly old. Regardless, she wasn’t sure exactly what these emblems that she could summon on her palms did, but she was ready any willing to find out in the next 24 hours before she repeated this all over again. Flexing her hand, she welcomed the excitement of the newly discovered element to her powers, a sly smile spreading across her lips.