Dark Communion - ShadoWeaver

[Jaycy Ashleana]

((April 24, 2020, directly after the SW challenge. ))

Her prize won and the Outback empty, Jaycy turned full attention toward the Opal now in her possession. Her hand came up and revealed the dark gem, a slow exposure during which she licked her lips. "You and I ..." she breathed, "... are going to have a conversation." A violent burst of wings from her shoulders, and she spread wide black-striped silver appendages. A quick crouch as she caged the opal in her grasp once more, then she leapt to the sky and exited through that retracted dome roof.

Strong wingbeats took her swiftly high, gaining vertical distance. She hovered there for a moment, careful to secure her prize in a hidden slit pocket of the leathers. While she didn't want to lose contact with the gem, she also didn't want to lose the thing, either. Once the Opal was secured, her green-gold gaze drifted lazily over the city, pausing here and there as she maintained her height. The docks and their ever-bustling enterprise were tempting, given her own interests there. Finally, though, she shook her head and turned her full focus toward distant cliffs. While they weren't her first choice - they were far - they offered something that no place within the city could provide ... privacy. Neither her ship - the Tyger - nor her shop could offer the solitude she craved for this reunion.

Destination settled, she flipped into a short dive before regaining movement with wings that spanned more than she was tall. Her path to the cliffs wasn't direct, or swift. She followed the currents, unseen but felt, and glided at intervals to conserve energy. Her stamina was enhanced and her healing ability prodigious but even she had limits, and Gren's abilities and strength had taken a good deal out of her; adrenaline partly fueled this trip and she knew she would need reserves for what would very likely be a long night.

The Opals had come back ... had come home. In another life, Jaycy had vociferously argued against this very state, but this Jaycy... well. She sought an ally.

The silver-streaked redhead finally came to rest on their - her cliff, backwinging before carefully allowing her to touch ground softly. Remnants of nights before with her lover (now husband) dotted the background. A vast hollow where they curled in sleep, a pit devoid of ash but scarred by blackened marks, scales and bits and bobs. She paid them no mind; nor did she pause to reminisce on the major events here; the love, the pledges, the sentimental sanctity of where she was. Psly, here, was forgotten. He didn't matter. She mattered.

Jaycy settled cross-legged on the frosted ground, near to the edge, and curved those wings around her as shelter from the winds that regularly scoured the face of this cliff. Her hand dipped into that protective pouch in her fighting garb and drew the Black Opal from within. Her hand turned until it rested, plainly before her, in her palm. While she had never held the Opal long, she had held it twice before, and she had some close familiarity with the physical form of the thing. This was ... not the Opal she knew. Turning it over in that palm, she examined the cracks and crevices of the new form, silent, curious.

Finally, an hour later, it was time. She'd known, too, the essence within the Opal during the times she'd held it before; she'd fallen prey to the thing's machinations. This time, however ... only Gren had any inkling of who or what ShadoWeaver was now, and he hadn't very long to hold her. Jaycy'd seen to that.

It was time to find out what had changed. "Hello, old friend," she crooned.

[Jaycy Ashleana]

With a new sense of herself, both physically and metaphysically, the black opal would have exhaled contentedly if she'd had lungs, mouth and nose. Long had it been since she'd experienced the sensation of flight and even then, she was always confined in some metallic shell. In the here and now, she reached out and touched Jaycy's mind. She probed and tested and found herself experiencing the sensations of Jaycy's body as it knifed through the air. Satisfied and smug, she enjoyed the moment.

When Jaycy spoke, the purples and pinks in ShadoWeaver's new form glowed brighter against the folded wings.

At the word "friend", she sent images into Jaycy's mind: Jaycy as a full dragon, majestic and resplendent in her ferocity, the black opal fused within the scales on her chest. Jaycy in human form, cradling the black opal as a mother might a newborn child, with soft words and softer caresses. Jaycy on this very cliff, queen of her particular mountain as she clutched ShadoWeaver – the world a raging inferno below. She spoke no words, but let those images linger, seeking to not only validate Jaycy’s claim of friendship but to imply an even stronger union.

She startled, and elation rose with the physical jolt that accompanied the rush. However, she soon tempered the fire of hope that sprung, carefully arching a brow - even if the Opal had no real "eyes" with which to see. Her words were audible, taken by the wind but still plain enough in the brief time they remained sheltered within her wings.

"You paint pretty pictures, of the good we can do ... together..." She stressed the word, emphasizing that she understood the promise would come with some price, that ShadoWeaver wouldn't be a willing servant to any grand schemes the redhead might conjure. The images were too "perfect," too focused on the humanoid of the pair "... but why would you help me?" The main question implicit but never explicit; if they were friends as she called at the fore, this question of price would never arise. However, she knew they both knew this wouldn't be the case.

Of all the words she could use to describe ShadoWeaver ... "meek" and "altruistic" were not among them.

ShadoWeaver lathered Jaycy's mind with images and feelings of comfort, as if to say, it's not a matter of why, but when and how. But the woman was correct in that the black opal had her own designs and would not relinquish her powers or offer her assistance without recompense. She didn't try to hide that fact...to do so would be deceitful. She wasn't looking to deceive...not now, not yet. For now, she needed to build something she hadn't experienced or asked for in a very long time: trust.

Trust was sometimes a fickle thing, for how powerful it could be among beings. Trust was something Jaycy wasn’t prepared to easily award the Opal - she remembered previous dealings, and had no doubt that ShadoWeaver had some sense that she wasn’t the most enthusiastic supporter of their return. Wings flexed, straight to each side, before again curving into that protective self-made shelter from the winds. The brief storm helped, strangely, to focus the redhead and those lingering thoughts of conquest planted drifted away with the air. Just as the Opal had no doubt changed from her jaunt away, so had she. It had been thirteen years, after all.

The silence stretched out minutes, or an hour, or five. She was in no hurry to reengage the Opal; time had less meaning and less importance than what was in front of her. Really, she had two ways to approach their next skirmish (for yes, at the moment this was a battle, both of strength and of wits). Keeping to business, deciding on the terms of transaction had merit; at the moment there seemed little harm in ShadoWeaver noting that trust was less important in terms of a potential partnership. On the other hand, familiarity might help breed knowledge and could give her some insight as to who this Black Opal was now. Forewarned was forearmed, after all. Cool distance might not achieve either of their aims, and why bother at all if she were to handicap herself from the very beginning?

Finally, she opened her mouth, emitting a soft croak. Frowning, she coughed to clear the parched throat and then tried again. Her voice rasped, harsh from a lack of water. The fight, and the flight, had taken its toll… especially in the heat of that last ring.

“What have you done, these last months away from here?”