Scrying from a rug-strewn floor

The dark blood, almost black in appearance in the near-absence of light, slowly trickled down her smooth blue skin. A large finger moved in to coat itself in the blood, like a scribe taking quill to ink. With deft, accurate motions, she traced varying symbols on different parts of her body. An Arcane rune of scrying just above the bridge of her nose; a Zandali glyph of praise to the Loa on her lower neck; four symbols of respect for the Elements on her stomach, one in Ignan, one in Aquan, one in Terran, and one in Auran; and two symbols of focus of her own devising, one on each shoulder.

Sucking her finger clean of the last of the blood, then licking the self-inflicted cut on the palm of her left hand from where the blood had flowed, she settled down onto the rug-strewn floor, crossing her legs and adopting a meditative pose. In the dull light of the single, small incense candle she kept for such occasions, her hair, usually white as snow, appeared almost ethereal, and her icy-blue eyes seemed to glimmer almost darkly.

Taking a few deep breaths to compose herself, Lithaella Jin'tor mentally prepared herself, taking words of power in her head and fashioning them into spells ready to be woven about herself. Her eyes slowly drooped shut as she raised her right hand and began tracing symbols in the air in front of her, a dull light glimmering at the tips of her outstretched fingers. Her lips moved without sound, the spells needing no true verbal component, the somatic and mental aspects of the spell more than compensating. Faint runes traced by her fingers started to orbit her body at a lazy pace, joined by more every few seconds as her hand moved more rapidly to trace more in the air.

Eventually lowering her hand to clasp the other in her lap, she reached out with her mind, her face serene despite the mental exertions. Responding to her concentration, the runes began to orbit faster, moving closer and closer until with a blinding flash the made contact with her body.

Opening her eyes slowly, she was no longer surrounded by the familiar and cozy room that she called hers, but instead was met with a vision of a coastline at dusk. A sandy beach, strewn with small rocks and shells, with no sigh of life or civilization save two things; the silhouette of some great, crumbling tower on the cliffs above, cast down onto the beach by the setting sun, a dark intruder on the pale yellow sand; and a small, primitive and weather-worn wooden boat, beached and tilted at a slight angle, rocking very slightly in the surf with every swell of the rising tide.

Drifting a little closer to the boat, Lithaella saw that the tide would soon claim it, dragging it back out to see, possibly to never see land again. Although she had no true recollection of the scene, she instinctively knew what she was seeing, and slowly looked over her shoulder to see two figures approaching at a slow, cautious pace. A very large humanoid and his reptilian companion, both moving with the practiced grace of a true predator. Even though she knew she could not be perceived or touched, she stood aside as they approached, watching fondly as a slightly younger version of her adoptive brother and his raptor life-companion walked past her to look into the beached boat.

She sighed and looked away. She did not need to look into the boat to see that a nearly-dead and six-years-younger version of herself lay within, shortly to be taken away and nursed back to health in the Sen'jin Encampment on the shores of Durotar.

With a slight flick of one wrist, the vision faded away, returning her to the darkness and heat of her room. With a sigh, she rubbed her forehead, smearing the Arcane rune of scrying.

"Why can' ah see furthah back dan dat...?" she wondered out loud, undoing the clasp for her pony-tail and lying back on the rugs, her snow-white hair splayed about her head. "Be summat stoppin' me from seein' de trut' 'bout ma fam'leh... from lettin' me know wha' ah needs?"

She heaved a heavy sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose, her eyes slowly drifting closed as she retreated to the sanctum of her mind to ponder her failure.



((I wrote this story a while back while Lithy was trying to discover more about her family. For reasons both IC and OOC, she stopped that pursuit, knowing that her active efforts wouldn't be as effective as what she might discover with the inevitable move of Horde focus to Northrend looming in the future.

I wrote a few random stories like this, and I'm trying to find the others; I lost them all when my laptop died and was replaced, and I'll post more as I find them, if people are interested. Not all of them are about Lithy, and I'll post a character bio for my paladin, Arithidrimme, if I find any of the storied about her))