Post by Nola Vilde on Jul 24, 2020 2:41:57 GMT -5
It was.... strange. She watched as Amalia gently circled her, and the went on to explain what....sounded like Quincy lore. About Nature,. about Tranquility. About an empire built upon a rich culture of prosperity, love, inspiration, passion. and so many other implications. She understood that this was new, and that those false memories were altered. But this seemed....wildly different. It wasn't like anything she'd garnered from those past lives. Just what had her Zanpaku'to been doing twisting the quincy into seeming to be something more ....vicious than this? Her skin tingle for just a moment, and then quite suddenly she was PRESSED.
A soft noise escaped her as she barely kept the air fro being shoved out of her lungs, gritting her teeth just a little and sucking in air, blinking owlishly as she glanced around. What the heck? She didn't recognize this, what was happening. And it made sense with what Amalia spoke of. As Nola watched that warm, gentleness peel away. There was no jarring shift. It was a smooth transition, not like a complete change but a ....different side of a coin so to speak. Quincy runes? She glanced down at her arm thoughtfully. Well, she wouldn't even bother asking why this was happening. Regardless of her actions, Shinigami were still shinigami. The fact that she had been wronged by them didn't change the face that she still was one of them.
She couldn't help but give a slightly rueful smile. A brief, flicker of one as she thought about her situation. Listened to the words from the woman's lips. She had to admit, Amlaia definitely had a knack for this sort of thing. She felt her pulse start to quicken and she felt little itching threads in her head. The dull, faded embers of memories gently rousing. Pain. Something she was deeply familiar with. Enough that enduring it was practically a skill for her. She glanced up at Amalia. Stole? She tied so very hard not to laugh. She didn't really have much a choice. Nor were they taken. She'd lived them. Moments stretched into decades. Centuries. More. Memories of the slaughter. Memories of being alone in a box, among so many other tiny souls. Afraid. Terrified. Helpless. Not knowing what was going to happen. Memories of a long, horrible suffering. Of a sky without a sun, and sand that smelled like bone and blood.
Beads of sweat ran down her skin as she felt those runes slowly begin peeling into her skin. and she felt a SPIKE in the back of her mind. and she HISSED! It wasn't probably the scream Amalia expected. But Nola's nails DUG into the arm rest as she felt the slivers of thin, precise reiatsu slowly undoing the seal of the tattoo on her soul. Her chest rapidly rising and falling as it felt like her flesh was being peeled away layer by layer, right down to the bone. And she remembered a deep, dark place. Cold, biting. In droves of othersSinners. And the memory felt so very close to this. It made her JERK in the seat, barely even moving thanks to that force keeping her pressed down into it.
and there went the words that had gotten her thinking. Her mind spun, and for just a second, she almost felt like the order of events had been mixed up. No doubt if asked about it later, this was going to be .... a bit of a mess in that head of hers. But all the same, she grunted, strained, and yelled out as that spirit was slowly extracted from her. Her eyes shut so very very tightly. Her heart racing in her chest as at long last, the very final vestiges of Alte Furcht was peeled away from her body, and she let out a GRUNT as it finally left, and she caught sight of it vanishing into that box for just a moment, leaving her panting, a bit of a sweaty mess as her vision refocused.
Her sight came to rest for a moment on the Quincy. She was too tired to answer in the affirmative to that question the posed to Nola. Well, it made sense. She didn't bother trying to speak up. Her input at this point was, after all, superfluous. Her glasses slightly ajar as she stared as that brilliant arrow, a brilliance that seemed to darken the room around it. Judged? She hadn't known thats what it was actually about. She had heard stories of Shinigami being lined up for conversion, and some of them just outright getting a hole blown through them. She had surmised it was the will of the quincy firing the arrow. But it was their emperor who made the call?
Staring down the proverbial barrel of the weapon, she couldn't help but wonder. what was going to happen?
She swallowed the knot that had been working into her throat, tensing her shoulders just a little. She didn't really get muh time to go composing a response. That arrow flew true and slammed square into the center of her heart! There was, as advertised, pain. As that core of her body was blown out almost immediately. Nola's eyes wide, and it almost felt like her thoughts shattered like glass as she was hit with that arrow. The light suddenly filling her body BURNED. Not like fire, but like a slow discernment. Not the flames of some pyroclasm, but the burning, searing light of something far more intense. And her skin visibly cracked for just a moment along her arm where the seal had been ripped from her body.
Nola almost fucking ATE the dirt as she stumbled forward, and her attempt to correct herself made her fall back flat on her ass as she let out a GRUNT. Her eyes squinted shut for just a moment as she ...opened her eyes. And she was somewhere else. Somewhere... familiar. someplace grassy. A lonely hill by a forest she could barely see into thanks to the tightly-packed trees. A lonely leafless willow just beside her as she panted, looking around, until she saw a man standing beside that tree. A very young man, watching a bird up in the branches thoughtfully. She herself blinked rapidly, furrowing her brows. Her...inner world? Only there was no wind. She always remembered a wind so terrible it seemed to strip the color from everything around her. Roaring so loud she couldn't hear a thing. But now it was... quiet.
And the man was....familiar as well. She remembered this. And as she did, the young man glanced in her direction, an amused smile popping up. "Don't act so surprised. I'm not so easily Copied." He noted gently. As if reading the errant wonder in her mind, at how ..exact her memory of the man was. And she felt suddenly self-conscious. Slowly standing up and looking around. "Huh....I would have thought I was gonna get the ...older one. You know...the lake?" She murmured, loking over her shoulder to the man, who simply chuckled.
"Wake up, Nola."
The transition was just as jarring the other way. Her eyes SNAPPING open! She almost puked from the agony that rolled through her, nauseating waves of pain as that reiatsu finished burning it's way through her body, leaving her gasping for air as at long long last, after what felt like fucking ages, the burning finally subsided, and she blinked rapidly, staring straight ahead as she sucked in breath, her eyes a bit wild as things finally seemed to settle down, her breathing slowly coming under control as she winced, her entire body felt like it was on fire. And well...it made sense all things considered.
She swallowed audibly, and she felt .... a little weak. wobbly sortof. Her body had been through an incredibly arduous ordeal. But all the same, she felt.....different. That rich reiatsu air felt so much more sweet to her. And she felt the air and everything around her so much more vividly. and it took her a moment to realize that it was because she had a real body again. That spiritual form sealed into this new being, and she stared at her hands. It was still a little pinkish, but it was no longer that jarring color. Her skin practically looked...Normal. And she couldn't help but smile to herself. She was alive..... she was ALIVE.
She felt her eyes string, tears welling up in them as she clutched a hand to her chest, and felt her own beating heart in her chest. she was ALIVE. And even though her body still felt as though it had been put through a woodchipper, she still smiled, panting as she managed to gather words on her lips.
"Thank you."
