Chapter Text
Despite leaving the dream, it was as though the tendrils still followed her, only now, they were occupied by the sickly scent of something sour that left her suppressing a gag.
Choking on the bile stuck in her throat as she screams, hands blindly reaching forwards in the confines of the dark rotted space she had found herself in. The thumping and scratching turned all the more desperate at the sound of voices congregating outside of her prison, clamoring together in shared confusion and panic.
Distantly, in her panicked state, she registers the feeling of the tendrils around her releasing with a bone like snap at either side of her torso, a sound loud enough that it vertebrates within her own body. She pulls free from it’s grasp entirely, her full focus on escape.
On the other side she can hear thumping, the dark space being illuminated with light at the small opening made from the ones outside. Hands reached into the opening made, prying it open further, until they came for her, pulling her free from her dark prison.
She stands for just a moment before her legs give out, and despite arms offering her support, she falls to her knees, gulping down the open air of the night. The clamoring voice outside were much louder— panicked as she felt, only after a moment where she was catching her breath did she notice just how deafly silent the group had become .
She turns her head up, looking around to see that their attention was no longer on her but rather where she was pulled from.
Mind still high from adrenaline, she could only see the pod at first— brown and shriveled, caving in on itself, and unbearably foul in smell.
It was when she dared herself to peer into the pod did she barely catch the form of another in the pod— body eerily stiff. One of the sylvari moved their torch closer to the pod enough for all looking in to recoil back in shock. The rot had fully settled in, completely distorting any discernible features.
She finds herself suppressing a cry, chin touching her chest as she forces her eyes shut in hopes to erase the image.
Deep down, she knows who it is.
“Brother…what is this?” She did not look up at voice who broke the shocked silence.
There was no reply.
Until finally, the one who she realizes she clung to stirs first, helping her on her feet. “What is your name?” They had ducked her head enough so their eyes could meet. Short white foliage rests on the other’s head.
“Wynne.” She say distantly, still having not fully gathered herself with what she had seen and lost.
The tallest of the sylvari who gathered seemed to finally come to, his voice authoritative, yet still shaken. “Get her cleaned, she’s to speak with our mother immediately.” He says, before motioning to the pod before them— the last of the twelve pods.
"I shall handle the body.”