It's hard to sneak quietly through the bushes, especially as twitchy as you feel, but you drop to your belly and begin to crawl through the thick branches. You can hear your brother complaining behind you, but you ignore him, focusing instead on the strange noises. The further you move through the bushes, the easier it becomes - they seem to be thinning out.
Then, much to your dismay, you hear a long and keening scream that sends a shiver down your spine. Everything goes quiet. You hunker down, hoping that the thick undergrowth is hiding you well enough and cursing your white coat. When you hear nothing more, you begin to creep forward once more.
Eventually, the bushes break entirely, opening into a wide clearing between two different stands of trees. In any other circumstance, you'd probably delight at the change of scenery and the freedom from the stifling foliage, the feel of cool air on your face. The earth here is sandy under your paws and you're at the top of the hill, but for some reason, those things don't really register to you.
No, you can't take your eyes off the terrible scene in front of you.
The remains of a small camp lie before you. Two tents have been set up, in the style of your people, and you can see the remains of a campfire and smell the memory of smoke in the breeze. It was likely put out not long before you arrived. Your mouth falls open in silent horror as you see that one of the tents is resting in a pool of blood, the canvas stained from where the liquid has leeched into it. You've never seen blood like this. You can't focus on that fact for long, however, before from the shadows of the tent a
thing emerges, black as night and seeming to drip darkness.
Cidhish.
Its lean body flows over the ground as it moves, a shape that seems to be sucking in the light around it, a void in the shape of a monster. The only thing on it that looks even remotely solid is the white bone mask over its face. As you sit and stare at it, petrified with fear, it rears back its head and lets out a hissing roar, and then begins to retreat into the trees.
For a long time after it's left, you can't move. You fall back onto your haunches and stare at the place where it vanished, your heart beating so wildly in your chest that you fear it might explode. The war is over, has been over for years now. You'd laughed with your brother that you might encounter one of these creatures, but you never dreamed that it would actually happen.
You can remember clearly the picture of a Cidhish the elder had in a crumbly old book, an engraved image of a black creature all covered with spines (or were they feathers? you really didn't know for sure, but you and your friends had laughed and made chicken noises) and marked with glowing red lines. Those followed the energy of its body, the elder had told you after scolding you for your seeming uncaring. He told you that they were related to the Entropy Beasts of lore, the only remnant of an old and terrifying creature that was all but wiped out by experienced Xenica warriors long before your birth.
This one didn't have the lines, but it was a Cidhish none the less. You slink back into the foliage, frozen with the knowledge of what you'd just seen.
You don't know how long you sit in the bushes, but it's dark by the time Talus finds you, panting and generally looking irritable. You tell him what you've seen and he doesn't believe you, but once he looks out and sees what's left of the camp, he's visually shaken.
Standing side by side, you make your way down to the clearing, trembling every step of the way.
In the bloodied tent, you find the corpses of two Xenica. Both are completely white and without features, one the size of an infant, and one an adult hunched protectively around the child, likely a parent. You feel nausea, but swallow it back, unwilling to appear weak. You continue to search the camp, fighting back fear with every step, but you need to see if there are any survivors.
A weak cry sounds out from behind a ruined tent and you hurry back there to find an adult male Xenica, bleeding freely from a fatal wound to the torso. You move to his side, and he in turn rolls oddly gray eyes up at you, coughing blood.
You know that he is dying even before the browns and blacks of his coat begin to melt off of his body, leaving the stark whiteness of a newborn's coat. No Xenica born has ever had gray eyes - they are the color of a dying soul. You hold the man and stroke his head, listening as he begs you to get help, his mate and child were in the tent... You find yourself unable to speak, to tell him that they've both died. He tells you that it was just the one Cidhish, but that neither he or his mate were able to fight it off, as they never learned the attacking magics. He tried to distract it, but it attacked him and left him wounded, and he'd lost consciousness. You don't notice your brother walking up to your side, until he touches your shoulder with his snout.
Eventually, he stops speaking and goes still, gray eyes staring straight ahead. Wordlessly, you brush a paw over his eyes and close them.
"We should make a pyre," Talus says after a moment, and you nod. The legends say that those killed by Cidhish, if not burned, will turn into them overnight. With your powers combined, it's easy to build a ceremonial ring and alight the corpses. Talus is quick to leave, saying that he's going to find a more secluded place to sleep. He's afraid, afraid that the Cidhish will return.
You stay by the pyre, watching the flames dance. It seems like you can see spirits floating there, but you're not sure if it's just your exhausted and stressed mind playing tricks on you.
You must fall asleep at some point, because when you open your eyes it's morning and the fire has long since died. You rub your eyes and find your cheeks are wet - you must have cried, at some point, but you can't remember it. You know you need to try and find your brother, but you're not entirely sure where to look. In a way, you're angry with him for leaving you and the dead. Nothing attacked you in the night, and he'd run scared and left you alone. You cast one last glance at the pyre and say a small prayer to the old gods.
Then, a glimmer catches your eyes from inside of the pile of ashes.
You see two orbs there, waiting for you.
Will you take them? Will you give one to your brother? Will you keep them both for yourself?
It's up to you.
