Amulet Love

*DEZUCHE*

       "WHO IS THAT?" I asked Hysho, ignoring the rest in the room and keeping my eyes on him, except to occasionally glance at the tsetri. Hysho cleared his throat.

       "This was Lenu, she was currently making her best attempts at becoming queen of The Sokyas, however the strangest thing just happened.. I'm afraid I don't exactly understand it, though."

       "What, exactly, caused her to react so harshly to you?" I asked him instead of answering his own question. Hysho bit his inner lip, causing it to look as though it divoted in. He looked up to meet my eyes.

       "Now is not the time. Please, stay here the night, and tomorrow at evening we'll have a ball, and you're our special guest; if you'll accept?" I watched Hysho closely. His eyes glimmered in the bright light and he looked almost to be pleading with me, something he'd never done before.

       "Okay, if you really want me to." I responded hesitantly. I glanced back at the tsetri, curious and slightly concerned. If the stories of these beasts was correct, either this Lenu woman would revert from her darkened, near scaly state. That is, if she's not too impure of heart. If she is, however, she would continue the transformation and become a deadly, bird-like beast with no free will of her own. Instead, that will now belonged to Hysho and myself.

       I shuddered at the thought of having control of this beast. It was like owning a slave. The word made me feel almost dirty, but in a slightly powerful way which made me recoil. I didn't want this, but it was out of my hands.

       "Dezuche?" Hysho brought a hand to gently cup my cheek, drawing my face back to his. I bit my inner lip, eyebrows creased in worry I had no control over. "Are you alright? Perhaps you should lay back down-"

       "No, I'm alright," I began to assure him.

       "Then something to eat and drink, please, I insist. This isn't at all the way I'd hoped to welcome you to my home, and I'd like to do something to make up for it."

       "Alright, something to eat sounds lovely, but first, I need to see something."

       Hysho walked with me to the tsetri, and I looked down upon her withered body. As I watched, the scaly texture of her flaking skin began to elongate and expand outward, forming ashy feathers.

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*HYSHO*

       GROTESQUE OIL SECRETED from the feathers which had begun sprouting from Lenu at an alarming rate. I felt my stomach squeeze nauseatingly as I watched it ooze down to pool beneath her. Dezuche spun to face me, her face slightly panicked.

       "Hysho, we should go, I'm sure neither of us are going to want to witness this." Dezuche's face was pale and sickly. Without hesitation I wrapped my arm about her and led her from the room, yet before we made it I heard a multitude of crackling pops and tearing skin.

       The moment we were out of the door I dropped to my knees and lost my lunch all over the floor.

       What the hell was happening in there?

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*LENU*

       EVERYTHING WAS DARK. My skin was cold, body aching in a detached sort of way. I could no longer see or hear anything. Was this death? Had Hysho somehow killed me?