She was drinking water from a water bottle that she harassed Ariel for because she was too lazy to go to a lake.
She was still looking over at the map Ariel had laid out in front of her on the semi transparent screen, which shows her the surroundings of the cave and whatever she might find useful within it.
The sun was starting to set and she was thinking about continuing tomorrow.
"Absolutely NOT!" Orion yelled at her suddenly, "I know what you are thinking! You want to continue tomorrow right?!"
"...maybe...." Rhaëlya answered while looking at a particularly smooth stone by her side.
She simply ignored Orion and decided to lay down for a bit, and as she laid down, she was facing Crypt, his expression now numb. Above her head was Carmen who had moved restlessly during her sleep, her expression was now morbid. And right behind her was Azrakai, his expression a mix of disgust, pain and mourning.
'Such a weird bunch.' She thought as she closed her eyes.
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Azrakai was watching his younger self, the one who was around nine years old, mourn his father's death.
His father, Lucas, was a tiger and the fourth spouse of his mother, Whelian. She had more than twenty spouses left by her side. She killed six and abandoned ten.
His mother was ruthless, only paying attention to her female children and very few male children.
She had always preferred females to males, even as spouses. It was a shame, though, that she wasn't an alpha female.
Thus no female in her right mind would mate his mother, known for her cruelty towards her mates. Albeit they were all males.
Thus, his mother, frustrated, took her anger out on her spouses and male children while pampering her female children to the skies and back. And tolerating the few male children she accepted.
He watched as his mother, in her beastform, tore his father up from head to toes. All because he had brought home less meat than usual because of the leg injury she gave him a few days ago.
After that, he watched the scene that still haunts him even in adulthood.
He watched his mother bite his father's still beating heart and making it explode between her teeth. The sound it made resounds in his head everytime he's alone now.
Then he watched her approach his cub self, still too young to have tranformed yet, pick him up by the nape with her bloody mouth.
Then approach his dead father, place him inside the place where his heart should've been and command, "Eat. You wanted meat, right?" She asked, the all too familiar cold glint in her eyes making his cub self shiver.
He had refused to eat. But he knew he couldn't leave, so he simply waited.
His mother grew bored, transformed back into a bipedal form and went back inside the cave. Not before instructing him though, "If you dare leave before eating him whole, I'll make you follow him too."
And with that, she entered her den, with her multiple mates still devotingly waiting to serve her. Not caring about what had just happened.
Azrakai was re-watching this all with cold eyes. He had already seen this so many times that he cannot even flinch anymore.
Thus he watched as his cub self stayed in his father's carcass for 43 days, only eating flies and drinking snow and rain. He watched as the bugs ate his father's flesh away.
Until there was nothing but a skeleton left. Then he left and went inside his mother's den, only to watch her laugh with her female children and two male children as of nothing happened.
Suddenly the scenery changed and it was six years forward, when he was fifteen.
He saw his younger self leave that den covered in blood.
That day was the day he became the sole black tiger of the tiger tribe.
He smirked.
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Orion and Ariel were sh☆t talking their host, Rhaëlya, while scanning the surroundings for potential threats.
Only to find the familiar mana from the forest, Baran's, ten meters away from the cave's entrance.
"...why is he so close?" Orion mumbled to Ariel, now back inside Rhaëlya's subspace.
[No idea. And honestly I don't want to know either.] Ariel replied quickly, fidgeting behind the screen.
Orion was now back in it's jellyfish form and was floating around the space, "Shouldn't we wake Rhaëlya up to tell her? What if he's dangerous?"
[If he wanted to harm anyone here he would've done so by now. But he seems interested in our host. And moreover, he seems to be unconscious as well.]
Orion was sighing while reading what Ariel wrote before freezing up suddenly, "Wait...you don't think that he was affected by the sleeping powder right..??"
[...]
"..."
"SH☆T!" [SH☆T!]
They both said and typed at the same time.
Not too far from the cave, a beastman with long purple hair was leaning on the trunk of a tree, six meters above the ground.
The beastman had his eyes closed as if he was asleep yet his expression was empty. Not peaceful nor restless. Just...numb.
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Baran was standing in the middle of an empty, dark and humid place.
It didn't seem to be the physical world. This place feels like an entity. As if it doesn't exist yet it does at the same time.
Baran was looking around with a confused look in his eyes before suddenly realizing something and laughing.
'Did that pretty female do something to make me sleep?' He thought, his blood red eyes still wandering the emptiness.
He had long figured that he was in a dream. Except that this was a very boring one, one he'd had for centuries when he was hibernating.
He stopped dreaming long before the war of the realms. He even forgot what dreaming felt like.
He sighed and sat down.
'Guess I'll just have to wait until I wake up then.' He thought, with a bored expression on his face.