crystal fear

Wandering through the Vale is a strange and uneasy affair, even with Crisper at Tang's side. There's something about the air, the way everything moves, the fog and the moon. While her little living flame of a friend gives off warm, friendly light, Tang can't help but begin to grow nervous again. She'd never admit she's getting nervous, of course. She only chatters at Crisper while the tiny light flickers and fails to respond, save to dart around her head several times. As hours wear on, Crisper stops even flying off, instead bobbing just ahead of Tang and lighting the way.

There's a strange prickle in Tang's fur, creeping up on her and unusual, an anxious feeling. Even her prattling goes silent as this feeling grows. It's an irregular pulsing in her magical core, dredging up oddities in her emotions that she can't begin to describe. She's Tang and she shouldn't be scared, she doesn't get scared, she is the gritty orange aftertaste in the mouth of a stranger, the sandy sour and delicious residue at the bottom of a glass-- and she's terrified. Her tail, already a bob, puffs out even more, and she pauses for a moment. Tang is an adventurer. She searches for what's best in the world and then she claims it. She's Free and she loves that and she takes that for granted but here? Questioning her courage, Crisper making an uncertain crackling sound... A shudder runs down her back. How many creatures have been watching her? How many things have died here? Tang nearly chokes at the sudden wave of terror emmanating from this new section of herself, pried open by the magic in the air. The reeds and breeze around her seem to wobble; she wheezes. She's not even sure she needs to breathe, but. Yes. Something's interfering with her and her energy and she needs to breathe magically, if nothing else.

"No no no," Tang mumbles to herself, "Stop that. Stop it now." Her voice sounds warped to her own ears, and one can't simply will their emotions away, especially any manner of panic attack. Crouched down, overcome with the warbling aether of the air, Tang has to lay and breathe and Crisper bobs curiously near her head, concerned. "Fine!" she suddenly bursts out, hopping back to her paws. Crisper explodes away from her in surprise. "You want to betray me?" Tang's talking about her own body, her existence. "You want to pull me apart!" And she's the one who darts off now, tearing through mud and underbrush, yelling wildly. She must look a mess-- she is a mess. The Vale has gotten to her, the magic too much, and she runs screaming as if she can drive off the sensation.

She slips.

The air tumbles around her, head over heels over head over tail, grass and water and something glowing violently just ahead of her mask. Tang lands lightly because she always does, she's too small to land any other way, but there is a crystal in sharp focus right at the end of her mask. There's nothing but that crystal, suddenly. It sparks energy, bright flecks and particles floating off of it and tracing off the ground near it. Tang gasps as a sudden trace of pink magic pulses near her paws, jumps back.

"You!" she barks, believing she understands it all now. "You're doing this!" Tang glowers violently at this rock, three times her size, and if she had teeth she'd bare them. "I have news for you, stranger! You're mine now, and you'll stop this!"

The crystal is impassive. It doesn't care about what Tang wants, and in fact charges the air with a few more specks of magic. Tang shrieks and bounces away from it, only to run into another crystal. This one's yellow and larger and oh no. Oh no, Tang realizes-- they're everywhere and they're huge, a jagged mouth of immense crystals pulsing through her and making her hackles rise. Panicked, Tang does the only thing that makes sense to her. "Mine! You're all mine! Stop it or I'll start picking you apart!" Not that she has anything to do that with, but she's huffing and terrified and the Vale disturbs her. She's been here too long, away from the deep orange desert sun and the heat. An adventurer she may be, a Free, but she prefers the feeling of sunbeams and a dry place to rest her paws. This place is just too nervewracking.

Crisper finally catches up to her, weaving through the crystals with a soft whooshing sound. The flame rests low to the ground, near Tang's tiny front paw. "What?" Tang looks down, shakes her little digits, "What do you want? You led me here, didn't you? Deeper and deeper we went and where we go, nobody knows, and now I'm in the middle of nowhere! Lost! No sign of anything except this wretched wet place and these crystals. They're mine, by the way, if you didn't hear. I'm claiming this entire place. Everything the light touches? Mine!" Her voice is rapidfire, not just melodramatic but well and truly panicking. The magic, too much magic, static in her brain--

and Crisper gently touches her leg. It burns a little, but the magic of a living flame is warm and focusing. Tang inhales sharply and looks down again, squinting. Her magic feels a bit evened out all of a sudden, like someone just introduced her to a hearth after she'd been out in the snow for hours. "Ah, I see," she says in a voice less shrill but still wavering. "I see how it is. You take me here, you show me this strange magic-- and then you try to take me over! I'm don't belong to you, little Crisper. I belong to myself. And I don't belong to any of you either!" She turns to angrily address these strange crystals again. Her head is clearer now, but she's still agitated. "Mine! You hear? Mine."

The crystals only glimmer and glow, deep veins of magic running out of them and around them.