Chapter 4: Chapter 4 – The Eyeless

 

Dara took her kill to the gate of the town she now occupied. The rusted iron was still quite sturdy, but the lock had fallen apart. The much smaller pieces needed maintenance in order to remain intact, and the grease that kept the rust out had long dried out, and washed away.

"A simple push is all I need, but that might damage the stone the gate is set in." She took her claw and shredded the flimsy metal. "Were they locked out of the town itself? Did the lord push them out?"

After she pushed the iron gate open enough, she set the boar inside, and pushed the gate closed again.

"I need to explore this town. Maybe even the keep, though I feel a sense of darkness from its depths. Like it's waiting for me." She shivered a little, and took the boar back to her house.

"This boar is big." She pursed her lips a little, which covered her fangs and made her appear not so fearsome. "I'll gut it, eat the organs, burn the intestines, and take the rest to the smith tomorrow. I can make more silver on the hide, but also the bones, and meat. This beast is too much for me alone. It'll turn before I can cut it up and smoke it." She scrunched up her nose.

To have meat to cook and smoke was once a good thing. Now, cooked meat seemed like a waste.

 

* * *

 

"Ah! Everything itches!" Dara groaned and cried out as she was filled with pain once again. The seed within her body was firmly rooted now, and well ahead of what should be expected.

Dara felt soft intrusions within her memories, and started to 'remember' things about her new race.

"An-ces-tral memories." She whispered as she understood what she saw, and felt. The pain that now ran through her body was similar to what she felt when the seed first went into her stomach. That was merely a shadow, a prelude, in order for her to understand what the Varra were.

She faintly remembered what others within the town said about the elemental beasts of the forest, or when the large clans had ancestral inheritances.

Her own family was too small, and only established a hundred years prior. They had no ancestral inheritance to pass on to the children, so their 'bones' could not remember. That was what the elders said anyway.

Big clans would teach their generations, and as each one learned, it became ingrained, and often would awaken when their children came of age. Their family was not rich enough in silver, nor rich enough in heritage and history. It was a large sticking point for her former 'father', and another reason he hated her for being born without talent.

Her own bones now ached as it felt like they were hollowed out by flame elements, and her joints ground down by earth elements.

Her new claws dissolved, her fangs fell out, and her tongue fell out of her mouth. Finally, her eyes dried out and turned to dust.

For the next twenty four hours, she endured the stages of growth she should have endured if born a Varra. She had to endure the growth of new claws that pierced her fingertips from the inside out. Her toes endured the same, but now instead of a heel, she had a talon come out where her heel existed formerly.

Her jaw and gums tore and bled as new fangs grew. The space for her tongue grew anew, but slowly. The only things that did not grow back were her eyes.

She was now in the throes of puberty for the Varra, and all that came with it. Savage hunger, insatiable lust, and full confusion about whether she was hungry, or horny.

Once her fangs grew back, she crawled over to the carcass of the boar outside her door, and growled ferociously.

She was starving, and she had over a thousand pounds of meat she could eat. The hide was in the way. She sliced into it with her new claws, and pulled open the belly to get at the flesh inside.

She didn't care about appearances. It took her hours to remember that she no longer had eyes with which to see, yet she could see everything without them.

While consumed with ravenous hunger and the pain of her growth stage, a snippet of an old poem came to her instinct fogged mind.

Whether you flee or fight, none escape the sight of the Eyeless.

 

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"I skipped parts of my growth." Dara said. She knew this stage was a part of her proper growth after assimilating a seed. She looked at the remaining half of the boar.

"I managed to eat nearly half of it before my hunger faded. I even ate some of the bones." She sighed softly, and looked at the night sky.

"Hm, I can see, but I'm not using my eyes." She said and pursed her lips. "I had to spend time as a Varra to have experience as a Varra. Without it, I would never understand what is to come." She sighed a bit.

"Ravenous hunger with each stage." She sliced off a leg of the boar and chewed through the bones, her long tongue sliding into the center to get the marrow. She needed the bones as her own had changed a bit. She looked down at her legs, saw the rear claw, the new bend to her calf, and frowned.

"Not reverse jointed like a bird, but reverse curved below the knee. I wonder what kind of advantages there are to this." She looked at her claws on her fingers and toes. "Feline. Definitely feline in nature." She tapped her chin gently.

"I wonder if my new race is a multitude of races, or simply their own race." She thought for several minutes, and looked towards the keep.

"I wonder if my answers are there, or a part of my inheritance." She grinned and started to laugh. "I have an inheritance!" She laughed loudly, and grinned maliciously.

"I have an inheritance while they scratch at the edges of knowledge they will never have! Who is powerless now!"

 

* * *

 

"Hm. The walls are still relatively intact. Some vines have grown into the walls, and pushed out some bricks, but I should be able to fix that." She smiled a little.

"I have to thank the clan for making me slave away." She severed a vine as she walked closer to the wall and pulled it away from the base. "I have a lot to thank the clan for."

After half an hour, she had examined the entire courtyard, and the exterior walls that surrounded the keep, but the sunlight was about to dim as it changed from day to night. Even her senses could not see through the gloom that rose from the forest floor during the night.

"Pity...hm? Oh, the Eyeless can see through the gloom?" Her senses switched to a different way to see, and now she could see everything as clear as she could in the day, just in different colors. The stone was gray, the ground a duller brown, but the vines and plants were brighter green than they were in the day.

The light faded, and she realized that in her own 'eyes', the light sparkled like it was full of energy. When it was completely dark, the night also sparkled, full of energy.

"Is this right? Dark elements and light elements? So the green is life?" A sense of excitement entered her body, and she attempted to climb the wall. At first, she tried to do it the way she might have before she had her claws, and she fell. She grimaced, but soon realized something.

"It didn't hurt. I fell several feet onto my back, but I didn't get hurt?" She tried again, and grinned.

"I don't get it. I climbed these walls before. Did I get instincts that handled it for me, and now I have to learn how to do it myself?" She rolled her eyes, walked back over to the wall she just fell from, and set her fingers against the stone.

"Hm? Now the stone also sparkles a bit? Is it perhaps earth element?" She cleared her mind of any additional distractions, and deliberately climbed to the top of the wall using her claws to hold on. It took more time, but she was able to do it.

She inhaled the air as she sat like a cat on the cool stone.

"Hm, over there." She turned to the direction her nose said there was a animal. "Storm wolves, not flame wolves. Such fools they are." She snorted in disgust.

Storm wolves were known for being unusually aggressive, and stubborn. When they locked onto a scent, they refused to give up the chase until they were given a good beating, or killed. Right now, five storm wolves were locked onto her scent.

"Looks like I'll have plenty of meat to eat." Dara licked her lips. When she did so, she noticed that her fangs had retracted, and now her fangs come out.

Things were getting interesting.

 

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