Welcome to Gaia! ::

Forty lashes, counted one by one, aching pain shooting through her back after each one. When they were done, they held tight to her so that she couldnt move, the same grim look of death on each face, half hidden behind their helmets. Through the very wall came two more soldiers, pulling a man in their arms whos head was slumped forward and feet dragged on the floor behind them leaving an imaginary trail of blood where he had passed. "Bastet..." He whispered, speaking solely to himself as he could not see the woman before him.

The lashes came one after another. The pain was so real, she screamed her face twisted for each one. It was bad enough that she clenched her hands into fists her nails sticking into her own palms with the force of it, her own teeth biting down on her tongue until her blood dripped slowly. Pain to forget other pains. Her wretched keepers stench and looks haunting beneath her eyes. Then more shriveled warriors dragged in a body with the fresh smell of blood. It was not just anyone, he was far too familiar, "Omari! No...leave him...alone." His head was already slumped forward with his pain and her own body went slightly lax with it all. Then a faint warmth came over her body and more words were heard only to be jumbled in her head with everything else.

Nelphean sat on the floor and watched helplessly as Bastet underwnet her own psychological trama. "Something is triggering all these things... My insanity, your insanity, Aurahkah's insanity... My clone's insanity... Nailah's insanity..." Nelphean thought for a mement, what was different. Everyone was going insane. Nelphean wanted to comfor t Bastet, but he didn't know how, her mind was as fargone as he had ever seen it, and he watched.

"You see, this the kind of thing that happens when you fall in love with me."

"For our time together, we were free, our souls had control when our bodies did not. I regret nothing." Nelphean said to Bastet.

Can't beat him, be him.

Nelphean crawled across the floor and sat near Bastet, " Some things are unavoidable, not much we can do about it. But we still do have our own souls to give us that which we truly want, freedom from this despairity and freedom of our hearts."

The words of love filled her head with the sounds of torture and the death around her. She could not make sense of it. Had Omari not been the one she was fighting for all of these years? No, recently she had been fighting for someone else. Fighting for another whom she ached for, an elf that sung to her heart. She had abandoned Omari, but really, she had moved on. "Leave him be!" Omari had been strong for her, could she abandon him? Again her mindset changed, It was impossible to bring him back so what force was bringing him in her mind. "Stop it!" Her tongue was slightly swollen from her biting it, but her words were clear as Omari was dragged off and tortured some more, "Omari is dead, I have been shown this. Stop torturing him and the memory of him! How can I listen to his voice again? He would not plague me like this in life or death." He sounded so different from one moment to the next. "Who is my true love? Do I have one? Do I deserve one?"

"Love can only be felt, never controlled or measured." Nelphean said calmly to Bastet. "That is the truth."

"Never forget, that is the key, to always remember everyone you love and lost, to remember those who hurt you as well, to keep a mind on all things ,and not just a few."

Cymarron sat within his den, looking at his claws, flexing them in and out. He'd been watching through his tavern 'eyes' and noted that none dared to touch Nailah, and that the coward Dobbs was missing. Good news. But that was not on his mind. his mind was on the attraction he had to Nailah, which he very well knew was more to do with her reminding him of Kisshy than anything else. Should he tell her this? or simply let it be part of him, keep it to himself and occupy his mind with her protection in that village? Or should he go and visit her?